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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



j UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

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K TRI-WEEKLYToBUCVkTIor/oFThjE B65T 


Vol. 7. No. 399. June 28, 1884. Annual Subscription, $30.0< 


HOLDSWORTH 


CHIEF MATE 


W. CLARK RUSSELL 


AUTHOR OF 


■A SEA QUEEN,” “WRECK OF THE GROS- 
VENOR,” &c. 


Entered at the Post Office, N. Y., as second-class matter. 
Copyright, 1883, by John W. Lovell Co, 


liJEW V6A 


+ Topy.N • W • LrOVg LiL,* CoAV’AHY- 

r,= s rs: ,-r ‘=-g- I4 (^16 V^EY STREl 










LOVELL’S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE 


1. Hyperion 20 

2. Outre-Mer 20 

3. The Happy Boy 10 

4. Arne 10 

5. F rankenstein ^ 10 

6. TheLast of theMohicans.20 

7. Clyde 20 

h. The Moonstone, Part 1 . 10 

9. The Moonstone, Part II. 10 

10. Oliver Twist 20 

11. The Coming Race 10 

12. Leila 10 

13. The Three Spaniards. . .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks. 20 

15. L’Abbd Constantin 20 

16. Freckles 20 

17. The Dark Colleen 20 

18. They were Married ....10 

19. Seekers After God 20 

20. The Spanish Nun 10 

21. Green Mountain Boys. .20 

22. Fleurette 20 

23. Second Thoughts 20 

24. The New Magdalen ....20 

25. Divorce 20 

26. Life of Washington 20 

27. Social Etiquette 15 

28. Single Heart, Double 

Face.. ..10 

29. Irene ; or, The Lonely 

Manor 20 

30. Vice Versa 20 

31. Ernest Maltravers 20 

32. The Haunted House... 10 

33. John Halifax 20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 

Amazon 10 

35. The Cryptogram 10 

36. Life of Marion 20 

•37. Paul and Virginia 10 

38. A Tale of Two Cities 20 

39. The Hermits 20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, 

etc 10 

41. A Marriage in High Lifezo 

42. Robin 20 

43. Two on a Tower 20 

44. Rasselas 10 

45. Alice ; a sequel to Er- 

nest Maltravers 20 

46. Duke of Kandos 20 

47. Baron Munchausen . . 10 

48. A Princess of Thule 20 

49. The Secret Despatch.. . .20 

50. Early Days of Christian- 
ity, 2 Parts, each 20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield 10 

52. Progress and Poverty ... 20 

53. The Spy 20 

54. East Lynne 20 

55. A Strange Story 20 

56. Adam Bede, Part 1 15 

Adam Bede, Part 1 1 .... i c 

57. The Golden Shaft 20 

58. Portia 20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii. . .20 

60. The Two Duchesses 20 

61. TomBrown’sSchoolDays.2o 

62. Wooing O’t, 2 Pts. each. 1 5 

63. The Vendetta 20 

64. Hypatia, Part 1 15 

^ Hypatia, Part II ...... 15 


65. 

66 . 


67. 


68 . 

69. 

70. 

71* 

72. 

73- 

74- 

75- 
76. 

77- 

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98. 

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lor. 

102. 

103. 

104. 

105. 

106. 

107. 


108. 

109. 
no. 

111. 

11 2 . 

II3- 

114. 


II 5 - 

1 16. 

117. 
J18. 

1 19. 

120. 

121. 

122. 

123. 

124. 

125. 

126. 


Selma • • • 15 

Margaret and her Brides- 
maids 20 

Horse Shoe Robinson, 

2 Parts, each 15 

Gulliver’s Travels 20 

Amos Barton 10 

The Berber 20 

Silas Marner 10 

Queen of the County . . .20 

Life of Cromwell 15 

Jane Eyre 20 

Child’sHist’ry of Engrd.20 

Molly Bawn 20 

Pillone 15 

Phyllis 20 

Romola, Part 1 15 

Romola, Part II 15 

Science in ShortChapters.20 

Zanoni 20 

A Daughter of Heth .... 20 
Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible 20 

Night and Morning, Pt. 1.15 
NightandMorning,Pt.II 15 

Shandon Bells 20 

Monica 10 

Heart and Science 20 

The Golden Calf 20 

The Dean’s Daughter.. .20 

Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1 . 20 
Pickwick Papers, Part 11 . 20 

Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

Macleod of Dare 20 

Tempest Tossed, Part I.20 
Tempest Tossed, P’t If. 20 
Letters from High Lat- 
itudes 20 

Gideon Fleyce 20 

India and Ceylon 20 

The Gypsy Queen 20 

The Admiral’s Ward. ... 20 
Nimport, 2 Parts, each.. 15 

Harry Holbrooke. 20 

Tritons, 2 Parts, each .. 15 
Let Nothing You Dismay, to 
Lady Audley’s Secret ... 20 
Woman’s Place To-day. 20 
Dunallan, 2 parts, each. 15 
Housekeeping and Home 

making 15 

No New Thing 20 

The Spoopendyke Papers , 2 o 

False Hopes 15 

Labor and Capital 20 

Wanda, 2 parts, each ... 15 
More Words about Bible. 20 
Monsieur Lecocq, P’t. I.20 
Monsieur Lecocq, Pt.II.20 
An Outline of Irish Hist. 10 

The Lerouge Case 20 

Paul Clifford . . . .20 

A New Lease of Life.. .20 

Bourbon Lilies 20 

Other People’s Money.. 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Ameline de Bourg 15 

A Sea Queen 20 

The Ladies Lindores. . .20 

Haunted Hearts 

Loys, Lord Beresford.. .20 I 


127. 


128. 

129. 
130 


13 1. 
132 


133 


* 34 . 

* 35 ' 

136, 

* 37 - 

138. 

139 

140 

141. 

142. 


143. 

144. 


I 4 S' 


146. 

147. 

148. 

149. 

150. 


151 

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* 55 - 

156. 

157 - 


158. 


159 * 

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172. 
*73« 
174. 
175- 
176. 
177- 

178. 

179. 

180. 

181. 

182. 

183. 

184. 

185. 


Under Two Flags, Pt I. 20 
Under Two Flags, Pt II. 20 

Money 10 

In Peril of His Life 20 

, India; What can it teach 

us? 20 

Jets and Flashes 20 

Moonshine and Margue- 
rites 10 • 

Mr. Scarborough’s ^ 
Family, 2 Parts, each . . 15 c 

Arden 15 ^ 

Tower of Percemont. . . .20 

, Yolande 20 

Cruel London 20 

The Gilded Clique 20 

Pike County Folks 20 

. Cricket on the Hearth.. 10 

Henry Esmond 20 

Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

Denis Duval 10 

01 dCuriosityShop,P’t I.15 
01 dCuriosityShop,P’rt II.15 

Ivanhoe, Part 1 15 

Ivanhoe, Part II 15 

White Wings 20 

The Sketch Book 20 

Catherine 

Janet’s Repentance 10 

Bamaby Rudge, Part L.is 
Barnaby Rudge, Part II. 15 

Felix Holt 20 

Richelieu 10 

Sunrise, Part 1 15 

Sunrise, Part II 15 

Tour of the World in 80 

Days 20 

Mystery of Orcival 20 

Lovel, the Widower 10 

Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid 10 

DavidCopperfield,Part I.20 
DavidCopperfield,P’rt 11.20 
Charlotte Temple . . . . 10 

Rienzi, 2 Parts, each ...15 
Promise of Marriage .... 10 

Faith and Unfaith 20 

The Happy Man 10 

Barry Lyndon 20 

Eyre’s Acquittal 10 , 

20,000 Leagues U nder the , 

Sea 20 1 

Anti-Slavery Days 20 , 

Beauty’s Daughters 20 

Beyond the Sunrise 20 

Hard Times 20 

Tom Cringle’s Log .... 20 

Vanity Fair in . i 

Underground Russia. . . .20 
Middlemarch,2 Pts.each.20 

Sir Tom 20 

Pelham 20 

The Story of Ida 10 

Madcap Violet 20 

The Little Pilgrim 10 

Kilmeny 20 

Whist, or Bumblepuppy ?. 10 
That Beautiful Wretch.. 20 

Her Mother’s Sin 20 

Green Pastures, etc 20 

Mysterious Island, Pt I.is 



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A Manual of Hygiene for Women and the Household. 
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LADIES Wy\NTED to act as Agents, to whom liberal 
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receipt of price, ^1.50. Addres.s 

HYOIENIC PUBL.ISMING €0., 917 Broadway, New Yorit, 
or 482 Van Bnren Street,- Milwaukee, Wis. 


JOW HOLDSWORTH, 


CHIEF MATE 


^ mbel 



W. C L A E K E U S S E L L 

i/ 


AUTHOR OF “THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR,” “ MY WATCH 
BELOW,” “THE LADY MAUD,” “A SEA QUEEN,” ETC. 



NEW YOEK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street 



V 












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JOHN HOLDSWORTH CHIEF MATE. 


CHAPTEE I. 

SOUTHBOUKNE. 

In a period of English history which gray-beards call the 
good old times — the tine old times — that is to say when Parlia- 
ment was horribly corrupt, and the Poor Laws as barbarous as 
the Inquisition ; when it took fifteen hours to go from London 
to Dover; and when at least one-half of the conveniences 
which we now very reasonably call the necessities of life had 
no existence — Southbourne was a small straggling village, and, 
by reason of the quaint and primitive aspect of its houses, 
something, even in those good old times, like an anachronism 
on the face of the land. What is now a well-looking street, 
fairly paved, and decorated with a number of showy shop-win- 
dows, was then an uneven road, with great spaces of grassy 
land, dusty and closely nibbled by goats, between the houses ; 
while the houses themselves were mostly gable-roofed, with 
latticed windows, which served excellently to exclude the light, 
and which gave a blank and lack-lustre look to the edifices, 
as though they were weary to death of the view over the way. 

Yet, in spite of its architectural deformities, Southbourne 
was such a place as would weave its homely interests about a 
man’s heart, and be present to his mind when gay and splen- 
did scenes were forgotten. At the very entrance of the village, 
as you went into the street out of the dusty London Eoad, 
stood the King’s Arms Inn, a long, low-built, white-faced tavern, 
with a great sign-board hung fiagwise over the door- way, which, 


4 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


when the wind was fresh, would swing with hoarse outcries, 
as though urging the distant wayfarer to make haste and enjoy 
the welcome that was to be obtained for a few pence from 
the stout, well-fed host who presided within. Opposite this 
tavern stood a decent farm-house, its thatched roof black with 
time, begirt with walls and palings, within which, when the 
harvest-moon was high, great stacks of hay would rear their 
gold-colored sides and make the air as sweet as the smell of 
new milk. And all about this pleasant farm-house were apple 
and cherry trees, under whose shadows a vast family of cocks 
and hens held the day eternally busy with their voices ; while 
pigs in unseen sties grunted their hungry discord, and did their 
lazy best to drown the mournful cooing of doves in wicker 
cages and the cheerful notes of the birds, who were attracted 
in countless numbers to the farm-yard. 

Between these two houses ran what the villagers called the 
High Street ; and the eye followed the road, patched here and 
there with dark-colored grass, for nearly a third of a mile, 
noting the gable-roofed houses that looked at each other from 
either side ; the blacksmith’s shed, where the bellows were 
always roaring ; the fiat-roofed baker’s shop, standing impor- 
tunately forward, away from the little house in which the baker 
lived ; the butcher’s hard by ; the apothecary’s next to that ; 
and the linen-draper’s shop, which had absorbed the frontage 
of no less than two solemn-looking houses — noting these and 
other details contributing to the carnal or frivolous interests of 
the place, until it settled upon a small building, which, stand- 
ing in the centre of the road, narrowed it into a large and a 
small lane, and thus marked the extent and importance of the 
High Street. 

Our story opens on a summer’s evening. The daylight is 
still abroad upon the distant hill-tops, but the twilight has 
fallen like an inaudible hush upon Southbourne, and the farm- 
yards are tranquil, save when, now and again, some uncomfort- 
able hen seeking a resting-place near to her sovereign cock 
hops for his perch, but in hopping falls and awakens the 
sleepers with her fluttering scrambles and keen notes of dis- 
tress, echoed by a hundred wondering throats. 


80UTHB0UBNE, 


5 


Tlie evening is warm, and many of the house-doors are 
open ; and at these open doors sit, here and there, men in their 
shirt-sleeves, or in homely smocks, smoking long pipes, and 
addressing each other from across the road with voices be- 
speaking laborious thought, which demands many reflective 
puffs to clarify and adjust. Now the, apothecary’s boy comes 
out and lights the colored lamp over the door, while the 
apothecary within sets two wax-candles against his brilliant 
globes of lustrous dyes and illuminates the darksome roadway 
with a crimson and a yellow gleam. Now the linen-draper’s 
assistant steps forth and puts up the shutters, to his master’s 
windows, while the master himself struts along the floor, flap- 
ping his counter with a dust-brush, and inhaling the appetizing 
perfume which streams from an inner room, and which is the 
best assurance he could demand that his supper is preparing. 
Anon comes a lame man, armed with a ladder, a lantern, and a 
can of oil at his girdle ; he sets the ladder against a lamp-post, 
and in five minutes’ time succeeds in kindling a faint, uncer- 
tain light in the darkling air. Thrice does he perform this 
laborious duty, and then, lo ! the High Street is illuminated. 

These lights seem to act as signals for sundry groups of 
gossips, standing here and there along the dusty road, to dis- 
perse. The small cackle of talk, like the click of wheels 
driven against springs, ceases ; the old hobble towards the 
houses, the young follow yet more leisurely; the gloom 
deepens ; one by one the doors are closed, and little yellow 
lights twinkle mistily upon the latticed windows. And now, 
though the clock of St. George’s Church has not yet tolled the 
half hour past eight, one may easily see that the good village 
of Southbourne, with one eye upon the candles, costly at six- 
teenpence the pound, and another eye upon the early hour 
that is to expel it from its slumbers into the fields and the 
workshops, is making what haste it can to creep, with heavy 
eyelids, into bed. 

In the house that looks askant down the road, and breaks 
the thoroughfare into lanes, there is a sorrow at work that 
should seem absolutely inconsistent with the serenity and 
peace of the summer evening outside. 


6 


JOHN HOLD8WORTH, CHIEF MATH. 


Three persons are seated in a cosy room ; a tall lamp on a 
table sheds a soft light upon the walls ; the window is open, 
and the large, tremulous stars look through the branches of 
the elms which front the little building. How sweet is the 
smell of the clematis about the window ! and see, a great 
black moth whirs towards the lamp and occupies the silence 
with its vigorous slaps against the ceiling. 

The old woman in the high-backed chair looking down upon 
her placid hands is a perfect picture of handsome old age : 
hair white as snow ; a sunken cheek touched with a hectic 
flush that passes well for, if indeed it be not, the bloom of 
health ; a garrulous underlip ; a mild and benevolent expres- 
sion. She is dressed in an antique satin gown, and a fine red 
silk handkerchief as large as a shawl is pinned about her 
shoulders. 

Facing her sits a young man, broad-shouldered and bronzed, 
with large, lustrous black eyes and dark wavy hair. He wears 
a pilot-cloth coat and black trousers, bell-mouthed at the feet, 
and a plain silver ring upon his left hand. 

Close beside him, on a low chair, sits a young girl, with a 
sweet and modest face, and bright yellow hair which shines in 
the lamp-light like gold, and blue eyes now filled with tears. 

So they sit, so they have sat, for many minutes in silence, 
and nothing is heard but the ticking of the clock on the man- 
tel-piece, or the awkward moth that hits the ceiling, or now 
and again the melancholy plaint of some dreaming or belated 
bird from the dark country that stretches outside like a vision 
under the throbbing starlight. 

Presently the old lady, lifting her head, says : 

‘‘I don’t think it pleases God that people’s hearts should be 
sorrowful. Nothing should grieve us but the fear of his anger ; 
and if there be truth in religion^ and any wisdom in human 
experience, there is nothing in this world that should make us 
sad.” 

The girl presses her hand to her eyes, and answers, in a 
broken voice : 

“ John and I have never really been parted before.” 

‘‘We never can be parted, Dolly, my sweet little wife,” says 


SOUTHBOURNE. 


7 


the young man. “There was a fear of parting before, but 
none now, dear one. I am only leaving yon for a while — and 
that is not parting, is it, grandmother? Parting is separation, 
and those whom God has joined cannot be parted — cannot be 
parted, my Dolly ! ” 

“ Ay, that is right ! ” exclaims the old lady. “ John is only 
leaving yon for a while — yon cannot be parted — remember 
that.” 

“ Bnt it is to be a long while, and my heart will be so lonely 
withont him, granny.” 

The old lady gives her head a dispirited shake. 

“ It is all going and coming in this world,” says she. “ Tor 
day here, to-morrow there; ’tis like breathing on a min-or.” 

“No, no!” cries the yonng fellow, “that is a melancholy 
simile. Life is something more than a breath. I wonld be 
content to know nothing bnt its sorrows rather than think it 
the hollow illnsion people call it. Oh, Dolly, yon mnst cheer 
np and help to give me heart I I want all the conrage I can 
get. After this voyage we needn’t be separated any more. 
Eemember, next year I shall be skipper, and then I can take 
yon to sea with me.” 

“ If next year had only come ! ” the poor little girl sobs, and 
lets her face fall npon her hnsband’s hand. 

“Nay, nay,” the old lady chides, gently, “ ’tis thy bnsiness 
to help and snpport thy hnsband, Dolly. Will tears help him ? 
Eesolntion is softened by them, and made weak and womanish. 
Yonr mother before yon, my child, knew what it was to part 
from yonr father. He once went to Spain, and for many 
months we knew not whether he was living or dead. Yon 
were a little child then. AVhat came to her came to me, and 
mnst come to yon, as it comes to all women who will needs 
transplant their own hearts into men’s. Know this, Dolly, that 
no love is pnrely sweet that has not known trials and afflictions.” 

“ Hear that, my little one,” says the yonng hnsband, stoop- 
ing his head nntil his lips tonch his wife’s ears. “ Let ns seek 
a blessing in onr grief and we shall find one. It teaches me to 
know my love for yon — onr love for each other. Is not snch 
knowledge blessed ? ” 


8 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘‘ See here, Dolly,” continued the gTandmother, battling 
with the tears provoked by the influx of hurrying memories 
which followed her reference to her own child, Dolly’s mother. 
“ When John is gone we will put up a calendar against the 
wall in your bedroom ; and every night after we have wor- 
shipped God we will prick off a day, and you shall see how 
quickly the calendar grows small under our hands. I am sev- 
enty years old, and it was but the other day that I was dancing 
your mother in my arms ; and I was a young woman, and your 
grandfather a hearty man ; with brown hair under his wig, 
and bright big eyes like yours. Why, that was fifty years ago, 
and it seems but yesterday ! Many’s the bitter tear I have shed 
and the grief I have borne ; but the times I mourn cannot come 
back to me, they are gone forever — my life is but an empty 
chamber now ; there is no fire in the grate, and the chairs are 
vacant, and I feel so lonely that I sometimes wish I was dead. 
But what is your grief ? It is but a few months’ separation, 
and every day that dies will give you happiness. It is not so 
with others, nor with me — no, no ! ” 

As the old grandmother spoke, with some perception, per- 
haps, of that rather discreditable characteristic of human 
nature which finds the best solace for its own trouble in the 
consolation that is wrought out of the griefs of others, the girl 
gradually raised her head and fixed her eyes wistfully on her 
husband’s, then laid her cheek against his shoulder, as a child 
would whom its tears have worn out. 

“ Grandmother,” said the young man, “I leave my Dolly to 
your care, and I know you will love and cherish her as though 
you were sure that any ill that came to her would break my 
heart.” 

“ She cannot be dearer to me than she always was,” answered 
the old lady, solemnly; “but be sure, John, that I’ll take 
extra care of her, since her preciousness is doubled by being 
dear to you and having your life bound up in hers.” 

“And you will keep her heart up with happy thoughts of 
me, grandmother,” continued the young fellow, his dark eyes 
made infinitely tender by the shadow of tears, ‘ ‘ and bid her 
remember that when the wind blows here it may be a summer 


SOUTHBOURNE. 


9 


calm where I am, and blue sky when there are thunder-storms 
here. You’ll remember this, Dolly ? ” 

“Yes, John.” 

“ The calendar is a good thought of grandmother’s. Or you 
may watch the flowers, Dolly ; you’ll see them fade away and 
leave the ground bare. By-and-by they’ll spring up again, and 
they will be a promise that I am coming back to you — coming 
quickly — quick as the wind will blow me — back to my little 
wife, to my sweet wife, Dolly.” 

She sobbed with renewed passion, and clasped his hand. 

There was a childlike beauty in her face that made her sor- 
row infinitely touching for him, who loved her with all the 
strength of his great heart, to behold. He looked wistfully at 
the old grandmother ; but she, more powerless than he, was 
brooding over the to-morrows which were to come, when he 
should have gone away and left her alone with Dolly’s grief. 

“I have a mind,” she said at last, “to send for Mr. New- 
come, the rector. He should be able to point out to Dolly, 
better than either of us can, that there is something unright- 
eous in suffering our hearts to be overcome by any dispensations 
God in his wise providence may choose to ordain.” 

“No, I don’t want Mr. Newcome,” sobbed Dolly. “ I must 
cry, granny. When John is gone I’ll dry my eyes, and think 
of nothing but the time when he is to come back to me. But 
while I see him, and know that this time to-morrow he will be 
gone, I can’t help crying, indeed I can’t, granny.” 

“ Ay, my dear, but if your tears could bind him to you, and 
take the place of his duties which summon him away, they 
would be very well. But it is your place to help him in his 
troubles, as it is his to help you in yours ; and see what a 
lonesome air his face has as he watches you, because he feels 
himself away from you by your refusing to listen to the words 
he tries to comfort you with.” 

‘ ‘ I would give my right hand to save Dolly from these 
tears, grandmother,” said John ; “ but it is her love that frets. 
By-and-by her eyes will grow bright, for she will know that 
every hour which passes after I have left her is bringing us 
nearer to next summer, when we shall be together again.” 


10 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘‘But a year is such a long time,” wailed Dolly. “ It is four 
times over again the months we have been together, and it 
seems ages ago since you came home, John. And granny 
doesn’t know the dangers of the sea. You have never talked 
to her as you have to me. Haven’t you told me of shipwrecks, 
and how men fall overboard, and how some ships catch fire 
and not a creature saved of all a great ship’s crew ? ” 

“Yes, Dolly,” he answered, smoothing her bright hair; 
“ but I have always said that the sea isn’t more dangerous than 
the land. There’s danger everywhere for the matter of that, 
isn’t there, grandmother?” 

“Oh dear, yes,” groaned the old lady; “ there are deaths 
going on all about us on the dry land, quick as our pulses 
beat. ” 

“Ay, true enough, grandmother,” rejoined John; “more 
deaths are going on ashore than are going on at sea. But why 
do we talk of death ? People part and meet again — why 
shouldn’t we ? There is no end to trouble if once we begin to 
think of what may happen. A man should put his trust in 
God ” 

“Yes, that first, that chiefly,” interrupted the grandmother. 

“And fight his way onward with as much courage and hope 
and resolution to win as though there were no such thing as 
death in the world at all. When I bid you good-bye, Dolly, I 
sha’n’t say good-bye, perhaps forever ; no, no ; I will say good- 
bye till next summer. Summer is sure to come, and why 
shouldn’t it bring me back ? ” 

“We will pray God that it will,” exclaimed the grand- 
mother. 

Thus these honest hearts talked and hoped ; but in truth the 
parting was more bitter than Dolly could bear. 

On this, the eve of her husband’s leaving her, she could see 
no promise in time, no sunshine in the long and dismal blank 
that stretched before her. She was quite a young bride — had 
been married only three months ; but his presence had already 
become a habit to her, a portion of her life, a condition of her 
happiness. 


SOUTHBOURNE. 


11 


Slie had engaged herself to him eighteen months since, not 
many weeks before he sailed on his last voyage ; but, though 
she had learned to love him tenderly as her sweetheart, his 
going did not then afflict her as it now did. He was only 
her lover then, but now he was her husband. She was ardent 
when she became his wife, flushed with the sweet and gracious 
emotions of her new state ; and because the thought of the 
approaching time threw a shadow upon her happiness she 
drove it deep down in her heart, out of sight almost, and so 
unfitted herself for bravely encountering the certain trouble 
that was to come. 

It had come now ; its full weight was upon her ; she thought 
it must break her heart. 

When we found them, they had not long returned from the 
last walk they were to take together for many a weaiy month ; 
and it was so bitterly sad to them both that no words can ex- 
press its pathos. They were surrounded by familiar and 
beloved objects ; and every detail that had heretofore made up 
the color and life of their married love now came, each with 
its special pang of sorrow, to tell them that their dream was 
dissolved, and that their embraces, their whispers — indeed 
their very hopes — must be postponed until a period so far off 
that it seemed as if no time would ever bring it to them. The 
poor fellow did his utmost to inspirit her ; all the unsubstan- 
tial comfort he strove to lay to his own heart he gave to her ; 
but his broken voice made his cheery assurances more sad 
even than her tears ; and down by the little river, when the 
evening had gathered, and the soft stars were looking upon 
them, he had given way to his grief, and wept over her as if 
the form he pressed to him were lifeless. 

The story of his courtship and marriage was as simple as the 
pastoral life of the village in which it occuiTed. 

He had been called to Southbourne by his aunt, who lived 
there, and who felt herself dying. He had then just returned 
from a ten months’ yoyage. He was fond of his aunt, as the 
only living relative he had, and came to her at once. At her 
house — indeed, by her bedside — he met Mrs. Flemming, Dolly’s 
grandmother. Mrs. Flemming took a fancy to him, admired 


12 


JOHN H0LD8W0BTH, CHIEF MATE. 


his handsome face, his honest character, the cordial tender- 
ness of his natnre, which he illustrated by his devotion to his 
sick aunt, and asked him to her house, where he met Dolly. 

He fell in love with her ; and then, but not till then, he 
found that Southbourne was an infinitely better place to live 
in than the neighborhood of the West India Docks. 

Dolly was an innocent little creature, and hardly knew at 
first what to make of the love she had inspired in her grand- 
mother’s young friend ; but by degrees the old story was read 
through between them, and the last chapter found them 
betrothed with Mrs. Flemming’s full consent. 

Meanwhile the aunt had died and left her little savings to 
her nephew, who gave the money to Mrs. Flemming to take 
care of for him until he came home. He was then chief mate, 
aged twenty- eight. When thirty he was to command a ship, 
his employers promised. Bo when he returned, twenty-nine 
years old, with only another year before him to serve out as a 
subordinate, he claimed Mrs. Flemming’s leave to marry Dolly ; 
and within three weeks from the time of his arrival they were 
man and wife. 

There could be no hitch : there was nobody’s leave but Mrs. 
Flemming’s to get. He and Dolly were both of them orphans. 
Her parents had died when she was a little girl ; his, some 
years before this story begins. His father had been skipper in 
the service John belonged to, and the ship-owneirs’ favorite 
captain. Indeed, Captain Holdsworth had served his em- 
ployers well, and, as a token of their gratitude, they kept their 
eyes on his son ; which meant that he was appointed the 
moment he had passed his examination as first mate, and was 
to be skipper at an age when a good many in the service were 
just entering upon their duties as third in command. But this 
only really argued that the owners knew a smart seaman when 
they saw him. Young Holdsworth was that ; and critical as 
was the jealousy his quick promotion excited, there was not a 
man who could be got to say that Jack Holdsworth wasn’t as 
good a sailor as ever trod upon shipboard. 

The first thing he did when he had the banns put up at St. 
George’s was to rent the little house tliat turned its shoulder 


SOUTIIBOURNE. 


13 


upon the Soutlibourne main road, and furnish it with the 
money his aunt had left him. That was to be Dolly’s and 
grandmother’s home. Old Mrs. Flemming had some furniture 
of her own and an annuity ; this last she was to club with 
John’s pay, which Dolly was to draw every month, and so they 
would have money enough to keep them as ladies. But the 
old grandmother’s furniture was very crazy; she, of course, 
thought it beautiful and elegant ; but this did not prevent the 
chairs from breaking when John sat on them, nor the legs of 
the tables from coming off when they were handed through the 
doors. Such of these relics as did not go to pieces were put 
into her bedroom, at her particular request, because they en- 
abled her to realize old times ; the rest vanished in a cloud of 
dust into a distant auction-room, and were never heard of more. 

The young people’s life was an idyl until the time approached 
for Holdsworth to sail. They went away for a 'week after they 
were married, and Dolly saw life : that is, she saw London, 
which frightened her, and she was very glad to get home. 
They had pretty nearly three months before them, and that 
seemed to give them plenty of time to enjoy themselves in. 
To be sure, the little cloud upon the horizon grew bigger and 
bigger every day, and Dolly saw it, and knew that in three 
months’ time it would have overspread the heavens, and filled 
the earth 'with its leaden shadow ; but she shrank from look- 
ing in that direction, and fixed her eyes on the blue sky over- 
head, and was as gay under its biightness as if it were never to 
know an eclipse. 

Mrs. Flemming and Dolly had several friends in South- 
bourne, and during these months tea parties were pretty fre- 
quent. Even the rector asked them to tea, and went to drink 
tea at their house ; and this occasion was a celebrated one, for 
the rector was a kind, whimsical old gentleman, and insisted 
on a game of forfeits being played. There were three girls 
besides Dolly present, so kissing was practicable ; and loud 
was the laughter when it fell to the rector’s lot to kiss Mrs. 
Flemming, which he did with such a courtier-like air that, 
under its influence, the grandmother’s memory unfolded itself ; 
and she instructed the company, in a tremulous voice, and 


14 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


with a lean, underscoring forefinger, in the behavior of the 
men of her day, when men loere men, etc. Hunt-the-slipper 
followed the forfeits, and the evening was closed with port- 
negus, October ale, and dishes of fruit, sandwiches, and 
sweetmeats. 

Hours so spent would make just such a memory as would 
keep a man’s heart warm in his bosom under any skies, in any 
climes, in calm or in storm. Years after the very inscriptions 
on the tombs of the rector and Mrs. Flemming were scarcely 
to be read amid the incrusting moss and the toothmarks of time, 
John Holdsworth remembered that evening ; how, flushed as the 
two Miss Lavernes were into positive prettiness by laughter, and 
Mr. Jackson, the curate’s, discreet kisses, Dolly looked a queen 
to them ; how her sweet eyes had peeped at him over the 
rector’s shoulder, as the worthy clergyman claimed his forfeit ; 
how she hung about him, and sported, as any infant might, at 
his side, with her laughter never so ringing and melodious as 
when her hand was in his ; how the kindly grandmother had 
hobbled about the room, with rusty squeaks of laughter in her 
mouth, to elude the rector’s reluctant pursuit ; how Miss 
Nelly Laverne blushed and giggled and tossed her head about 
when Mr. Jackson kissed her. ... 

The curtain was falling, the lights were dimming, and now 
tears and sighs and heart-rending yearnings were making a 
cruel ending of the pleasant summer holiday. 


CHAPTEK II. 

TO THE DOWNS. 

The Meteor was a full-rigged ship of eleven hundred tons, 
with painted ports and a somewhat low freeboard, which gave 
her a rakish look. Her figure-head represented a woman, 
naked to the waist, emerging from a cloud, and was really a 
sweet piece of carving. She was a ship of the old school, with 
big stern windov/s, and a quaint cuddy front and heavy spars. 


TO THE DOWNS. 


15 


Yet, built after the old-fashioned model, her lines were as clean 
as those of an Aberdeen clipper. 

She made a glorious picture as she lay off Gravesend, the 
clear summer sky tinting the water of the river a pale blue, 
and converting it into a mirror for an ideal representation of 
the graceful vessel. Many boats were clustered about her 
side, and up and down her canvased gangway went hurrying 
figures. The ensign was at the peak, and at the fore floated 
the bluepeter, signal to those who took concern in her that 
she would be soon under way. 

She was bound to New York, whence she was to carry an- 
other cargo south, ultimately touching at Callao before she 
spread her wings for the old country. 

There were a few first-class passengers on board, and some 
of them stood near the gangway in low and earnest talk with 
friends, while others w^ere on the poop, gazing at the shore 
with wistful eyes. One of these was a widow, whose husband 
had been buried a few weeks before in the church-yard of a 
little Kentish town. She was taking her boy back with her 
to New York, where her friends were ; and there they stood, 
hand-in-hand, the child with wondering eyes everywhere, the 
mother with a fixed gaze upon the land which was consecrated 
forever to her heart by the beloved form it held. 

The river was brilliant and busy with vessels at anchor or 
passing to and fro, with boats pulling from shore to shore, with 
the gay sunshine deepening and brightening the colors of flags, 
or flashing white upon the outstretched canvas, and trembling 
in silver flakes upon the water. Sailors hung over the fore- 
castle of the Meteor, bandying jokes full of pathos, or exchang- 
ing farewells with wives and sweethearts, or male friends in 
boats grouped, with outstretched oars, around the bows of the 
ship. Some of the hands were aloft casting off the yard-arm 
gaskets, ready to sheet home when the boatswain’s pipe should 
sound. The wind — a light breeze — was north, a soldier’s wind, 
that would take them clear of the river, and make a fair pas- 
sage for them down Channel ; and now they were only waiting 
for the captain to come on board with the pilot to start. 

By eleven o’clock the ship was to be under way ; and even 


10 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTU, CHIEF MATE. 


as the clear chimes of the clock striking the hour floated across 
the river from the land, a boat pulled by three men swept 
along-side, and the captain, followed by the pilot, sprang up 
the ladder. 

A tall, broad-shouldered young man stood at the gangway to 
receive them, and touched his cap as the captain came on 
board. 

“ All ready, Mr. Holdsworth ? ” 

“ All ready, sir.” 

“ Man the windlass then.” 

‘‘ Ay, ay, sir.” 

He was on the forecastle in a jiffy, and the thunder of his 
voice went along the deck and brought all hands to the wind- 
lass as if a line had pulled each man to his place. The boat- 
swain’s pipe shrilled ; the pilot’s face, colored like mahogany, 
took an anxious expression ; and then clank, clank, clank ! 
went the windlass, followed in a moment by a hoarse song, 
which at regular intervals burst into a chorus : 

“ And when you come to the dock-yard gates, 

Yo, boys, yo ! 

You’ll find that Sal for her true-love waits. 

Heave, my bully boys, heave ! 

Then heave, my boys, oh, heave together ! 

Yo, boys, yo ! 

And get her out o’ the stormy weather ! 

Heave, my bully boys, heave ! ” 

Then came such cries as these : 

“ Sheer off, you boats there ! ” 

“ Get the gangway ladder inboard ! ” 

“Loose the inner jib, one of you ! ” 

“A hand aft to the wheel ! ” 

To see young Holdsworth now was to see a sailor, with a 
voice like a gale of wind, the whole great ship and her thou- 
sand complications of spars, ropes, sails, packed, so to speak, 
like a toy in the palm of his hand. 

The skipper was below ; the pilot was lord and master now, 
and Holdsworth watched his face for orders. 

Soon the cable was up and down, the anchor lifted, and some 


TO THE DOWNS, 


17 


hands left the windlass to make sail. The tide had got the 
ship, and she was floating almost imperceptibly past a large 
ximerican vessel that had brought-up the evening before. A 
few boats followed ; some turned and made for Gravesend, the 
inmates standing up and waving their hats and handkerchiefs. 

By this time the anchor was apeak, and all hands quitted 
the windlass to make sail. Then you might hear cries of 
“ Sheet home ! ” from the air. Down fell great spaces of can- 
vas, like avalanches of snow ; chains rattled through blocks ; 
fore and aft songs and choruses were raised and continued until 
silenced by the order “ Belay ! ” The yards rose slowly up the 
polished masts and stretched the canvas tight as drum-skins. 
The men on board the Yankee crowded her forecastle and gave 
the Britisher a cheer as she passed. Amid the songs of men, 
the piping of the boatswain and his mates, and the noisy com- 
mands of the pilot, the Meteor burst into a cloud of canvas, 
chipped a white wave out of the blue river, and went ahead 
like a yacht in a racing match. 

The breeze freshened as the river widened. The decks 
were quiet now, the ropes coiled down clear for running, and 
everything hauled as taut and snug as if the ship had been at 
sea a month. At two o’clock she was foaming along under 
royals and flyiug-jib, whisking past colliers dragging their 
main-channels through the w^ater as if they were drowning 
flies struggling for the land ; overhauling smart schooners 
and ships as big as herself, and making the land on either 
side of her dwindle down and down into flat, marshy country. 

The pilot, pompous to the last extremity, with bow-legs 
and moist eyes, strutted fore and aft the poop, sometimes call- 
ing an order to the man at the wheel, and constantly looking 
aloft, ahead, and around him. The passengers lounged about 
the deck or hung over the side, watching the foaming water 
rush past them, and almost, losing — those of them, at least, 
who were leaving their homes — their sadness in the sense of 
exhilaration begotten by the swift speeding of the vessel 
through the glory and freshness of the summer afternoon. 

Forward, the men were industrious in the forecastle, rigging 
up their hammocks, or preparing their bunks for the night, or 
2 

/ 


18 


JOHN E0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE, 


overhauling their sea-chests, or the canvas bags which, among 
seamen, often answer the purpose of sea-chests. It was a 
queer sight to see their busy figures in the twilight of the 
forecastle — here the black face of a negro, there the broad fea- 
tures of a Dutchman, here a mulatto, there a lantern- jawed 
Yankee, peak bearded and narrow hipped — a world in minia- 
ture, something after the nature of a menagerie, all talking in 
English, with accents which made the effect indescribable gib- 
berish to the unaccustomed ear. They were most of them 
friends already ; some had sailed in company before, and now 
they would suspend their work to offer one another a chew of 
tobacco, to beg the loan of a “ draw,” meaning a pipe ; wdiile the 
air grew insufferable to all but a seaman’s digestion, with the 
smell of black cavendish and the inexpressible odor of bilge- 
water, tar, hemp, and the ship’s cargo generally, which rose 
directly through the fore-hatch, and was blown into the fore- 
castle by the draught under the foresail. 

At eight o’clock the Meteor was off Margate, all sails but 
royals set ; one of the noblest spectacles of beauty, grace, and 
majesty the world has to offer — a full-rigged ship — a leaning 
mountain of canvas rushing under the sky, with a whirl of 
foam bursting like two gigantic white arms from her sides. 

But the North Foreland brings you to a sharp turn, and the 
wind had drawn three or four points to the west, and was blow- 
ing fresh in mid-channel as the pilot saw by the distant Good- 
win Sands on the port bow, which lay upon the horizon in a 
long streak of foam, like the milky-way in the sky. 

This was a pity, because, unless they were disposed to stand 
for the French shore, and so make Folkestone by a long board, 
they would have to bring up in the Downs. 

However, there was no help for it ; for, though the vessel’s 
yards were braced hard up against the lee rigging, she con- 
tinued to fall off half a point by half a point, and, by the time 
she was off Eamsgate, her head was south. But the Meteor 
could sail to windward like a yacht. They furled the main- 
sail, took a single reef in the top-sails, and then all hands stood- 
by to put the ship about. Standing-by is sailors’ English for 
being ready. The men went forward, and the ship, with two 


TO THE DOWNS. 


19 


hands at the wheel, made straight for the South Sand Head — . 
the southernmost portion of the formidable Goodwin Sands. 

The Channel was a glorious scene. The sun had sunk be- 
hind the land, bequeathing a broad red glare to the heavens, 
over which some great clouds were unfurling themselves — livid 
promontories with flaring crimson headlands. Astern rose the 
solid white cliffs, looking phantasmal upon the dark- colored 
water. On the right the land swept into a bav, hugging the 
water flatly as far as Deal, then rising into a great front of 
frowning cliffs, which stood black against the background of 
the red sky. The gloom of the gathering evening had paled 
the outlines of the houses into the shadowy land ; but here and 
there you could see small vessels riding close inshore, or 
smacks with red sails creeping round the various points, while 
all between was the quick-running sea, colored by the different 
depths of sand into an aspect of wild and multiform beauty. 
Away on the left the water, quivering with hurrying waves 
polished like oil, stretched to a dim and desolate horizon. 
Here and there a brig or a bark ploughed laboriously for the 
Downs, shipping seas like columns of snow, and lurching like 
a drunkard that must presently fall. The Meteor overtook and 
passed many of these vessels as if they were buoys, sometimes 
running so close along side as to take the wind out of their 
sails and set them upright on an even keel. It was strange to 
look down upon their decks, lying close to the water, and see 
the steersmen gazing upward, the masters walking to and fro 
and not deigning to notice anything but their own ships, 
a head or two peering over the bulwarks ; to hear the groan- 
ing and grunting of the timbers, the yelling of the wind in 
the masts, and then, in a moment, to see them pitching and 
tumbling astern, dwindling into toys, and scarcely perceptible 
among the lead-colored waves. 

But now the crimson had faded out from over the land, and 
where it had vanished burnt a strong and steady light, topping 
the summit of the highest and outermost cliff. The night fell, 
and all about the expanse of water innumerable lights started 
into life : lanterns of vessels in the Downs, of passing ships, of 
the Goodwin beacons. The clouds, which had looked slate- 


20 


JOHN HOLDS WORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


colored against the sunset, were now white, and rolled like 
great volumes of steam across the stars. Then right ahead of 
the ship rose a pale white line — a quick, spectral play of froth, 
and a great red star, shining like an arrested meteor, and 
which a few minutes before seemed to be many miles distant, 
grew big and lurid and dangerous. 

A deep voice sounded along the Metem ^ — ‘‘All hands about 

ship r 

A rush of feet and then a silence ; round flew the wheel like 
a firework ; the red light ahead swept away giddily to the left. 

“ Helm alee ! ” 

The canvas shook like thunder, and the passengers crowded 
aft, wondering to find the ship upright. 

“ Main-sail haul ! ” 

And at this signal forth burst a loud chorus ; the released 
braces allowed the yard to fly round, the decks echoed to the 
tramping of feet and to the cries of men ; the vessel lay over 
as though she must capsize ; there was a rush of inexperienced 
passengers to windward ; another hoarse command ; round 
flew the foreyards, and in a few minutes the Meteor was darting 
through the water with her head for Deal, and the pale, phos- 
phorescent gleam of the Goodwin Sands dying out upon the 
sea on her weather- quarter. 

The ship tacked three times duiing the next hour ; and at 
half -past nine the wind lulled, and the moon came out of the 
sea a broad, yellow shield. There was something indescriba- 
bly solemn in the rising of this orb as she climbed in a haze 
over the edge of the horizon, and flashed a wedge of quivering 
light into the tumbling waters. The sails of the Meteor caught 
the radiance presently, and her long wake glittered in the light 
like a trail of silver spangles. 

She was in the Downs now, and in a dead calm, and within 
a quarter of an hour she was riding at anchor, everything 
furled aloft, and taut and snug as a man-of-war, with many 
ships about her, resting like phantom vessels on the surface of 
the water. 

The watch was set, the binnacle and riding-lamp trimmed, 
the watch below turned in, the other watch lay down upon 


TO THE DOWNS. 


21 


tlieir chests or on the deck to sleep in their clothes, and a 
deep repose fell upon the erewhile busy, laboring sliij). The 
silence was unbroken save by the murmur of some of the pas- 
sengers talking in a group around the cud4y skylight, or by 
the sound of a fiddle played in some one of the nearer-lying 
vessels, or by the faint, melodious murmur of the breakers 
boiling upon the pebbly strand of Deal. 

A breathless summer night ! with big shooting-stars chasing 
the heavens, and a moon growing smaller and brighter each 
moment, and the dim tracery of the tapering masts and rigging 
of the Metem' pointing from the deep and vanishing in the 
gloom. Away on the left, for the tide liad swung the ship 
round and pointed her bowsprit up Channel, glittered the lights 
of Deal — suggestions of home life which riveted many eyes 
and made many hearts thoughtful and sad — none more so 
than Holdsw’orth’s, whose watch it was, and who, now that 
liis active duties were over, could surrender himself to the 
bitter luxury of thought. 

He paced to and fro athwart the poop, his heart far away 
in the little village he had quitted. The face of his child- 
wife rose before him, and he lived again in the hard parting 
that had wrenched his heart and sent him sobbing from his 
home. He felt her clinging arms about his neck ; he looked 
down into her swollen eyes ; he repeated again and again, in 
broken tones, his fond and last entreaty that she would keep 
her heart up, pray for him, and think only of the joyous sum- 
mer that would come to bless and bring them together once 
more. 

The music ceased in the distance ; the tinkling of bells, an- 
nouncing the half hour past ten, came stealing across the 
water, and was echoed by five ringing strokes upon the bell 
on the Meteor's quarter-deck. 

Half -past ten! Was Dolly sleeping now? Had her grief 
and her tears wearied her into repose ? How long, how very 
long, it seemed since he saw her last! The time was to be 
counted in hours, but it appeared days and weeks to him. 

He leaned with his arms upon the poop-rails, and stood lost 
in thought. A question asked in a soft voice made him turn. 


22 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘ ‘ Do all those lights there belong to siiips ? ” 

The speaker was the widow to whom Holdsworth’s attention 
had been several times attracted during the day by the air of 
sadness her face wore, and her devotion to her bright-haired 
little boy, whose sweet, wondering eyes, as he cast them 
round, had reminded him of Dolly’s, and drawn his heart to 
him. 

“Yes, they belong to ships at anchor like ours.” 

“ How beautiful is this night! I have left my boy asleep 
and stolen from the cabin to breathe the fresh air.” 

“ I dare say the dear little fellow sleeps well after the ex- 
citement he has gone through. I noticed that his wondering 
eyes were very busy when we were in the river.” 

Hearing this, she grew frank and cordial at once. Her 
woman’s heart was as sure of him as if she had known him all 
his life. 

“Did you notice my child? I should have thought you 
were too much occupied. He was tired out, God bless him I 
when I put him to bed ; too tired even to say his prayers. 
He has no father now to love him, so I must give him a double 
share of my love.” 

“ Ah, you will not find that hard. He is a manly little 
fellow, and he and I will become great friends, I hope.” 

“I trust you will — You are Mr. Holds worth? I heard 
the captain call ybu by that name. And you are the chief 
mate ? ” 

“Yes, madam.” 

“ I admire your profession, Mr. Holdsworth, and have a 
good excuse for doing so, for both my father and brother were 
sailors. But I don’t think I could ever let my boy go to sea ; 
I could never bear to part with him. And I sometimes won- 
der how the wives of sailors can endure to be separated from 
their husbands.” 

“ That is the hardest part of our profession,” answered 
Holdsworth, quickly. “I never understood it before this 
voyage. I have had to leave my young wdfe ; may God pro- 
tect her until I come back 1 ” 

“ Is she very young ? ” 


DOWN CHANNEL. 


23 


‘‘Nineteen.” 

“ Poor girl ! ” exclaimed the widow, with deep sympathy in 
her voice. She added, cheerfully : “ But this separation will 
only make you dearer to each other. You are sure to meet 
again. Time flies quickly, and all these weary days will seem 
no more than a dream to you when you are together.” 

She sighed, and glanced down at the deep crape on her 
dress. The moonlight enabled Holdsworth to notice the 
glance, and the pathos of it silenced him. In the presence of 
such an experience as her parting was — he knew whom she had 
lost by her reference to her fatherless boy — his own sorrow 
appeared light. 

“ There is always hope, there is always the promise of hap- 
piness in store while there is life,” she continued, gently. “ Do 
not be down-hearted, Mr. Holdsworth. This parting is but a 
temporary interruption of your happiness. Be sure that God 
will protect your young wife while you are away, and do not 
doubt that he will lead you back to her.” She smiled softly at 
him, and adding, “I must go to my little one now,” bowed 
cordially and went away. 

He could have blessed her for an assurance w^hich, having 
no better foundation than a woman’s sympathy, cheered him as 
no thoughts of his own could have done. “ That is a true 
heart,” he said to himself, and resumed his walk, repeating her 
words over and over again, and drawing a comfort from them 
that made his step elastic and his eyes bright. 


CHAPTEB III. 

DOWN CHANNEL. 

At six o’clock next morning the sleeping passengers were 
awakened by cries and trampings which, to some of them at 
least, were novel disturbers of their slumbers. They might 
have told the reason of all this noise without going on deck ; 
for those who slept in cots found the deck making an angle 


24 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


with their beds, and the lee j)ort-holes veiled with rushing 
green water, and all the movables crowded together at a dis- 
tance from where they had been deposited the night before. 
And hoarse cries sounded, and the clanking of massive chains, 
and the strange groaning a ship makes when she heels over to 
a weight of canvas. 

Yes, the Meteor was under way, with a spanking breeze on 
the starboard quarter, which she woul^ haul round abeam — 
her best point of sailing — when she had cleared the South 
Foreland. If this breeze held, the pilot said, he would be out 
of the ship and toasting her in rum-and-water at Plymouth be- 
fore the sun went down next day. 

Some of the passengers came on deck when the ship was off 
Folkestone, and then they saw as fair a sight as the world has 
to offer — the great white English cliffs topped with swelling 
tracts of green, with here and there small bays with spaces of 
yellow sand between ; houses thickly grouped — so it seemed 
in beholding them from the sea — upon the very margin of the 
cliff ; slate-colored hills paling far, far away with visionary 
clouds upon them ; and between the ship and the shore many 
pleasure-boats and other craft, with white or ochre-colored 
sails and bright flags, lending spots of red and blue to the 
perspective of the chalky cliff. 

The pilot hugged the wind, rightly apprehensive that it 
might draw ahead and cripple him for sea-room ; and the 
Meteor hereabouts was so close to the land that those on board 
her could see the people walking on shore — man’s majesty 
illustrated by dots of black upon the beach or the heights. 
Overhead was a brilliantly blue sky, with small wool-white 
clouds driving over it ; the sea laughed in dimples and shivered 
the white sunlight far and wide, so that every crest gleamed 
with a diamond spark of its own ; and away on the left, a pale, 
faint cloud floating upon the horizon, was the French coast. 

The gay panorama swept by and new scenes opened — 
stretches of barren coast with ungainly coast-guards’ huts for 
their sole decoration ; spaces of vivid green ruled off with 
lines of soft brown sand, and low black rocks mirrored in the 
lake-like surface of the water under the lee ; whitewashed vil- 


nowjsr CHANNEL. 


25 


lages with wreaths of blue smoke curling from their midst ; 
and broad expanses of trees darkening the lighter-colored 
landscape with delicate shadows. Sturdy vessels — the dray- 
horses of the Channel — slow, deep-laden, and wafting, many 
of them, the scent of pine and other woods across the water, 
were overtaken and passed, often amid the laughter of the crew 
on the Meteor* s forecastle, and “chaff,” which even the grave 
Captain Steel, the Meteor's skipper, condescended to smile at. 
How picturesque these vessels ! Here a Dutch bark painted 
white, with square-faced men staring over the bulwarks, a red- 
capped commander in sea-boots and vast inexpressibles, and a 
steersman who sometimes looked at the Meteor and sometimes 
at the sails of his own ship, mixing duty and curiosity in a 
manner delightful to behold ; there a North-country brig with 
dirty, patched sails and black rigging, and a crew with 
smoked faces, and a grinning head at the galley- door ; some- 
times a French smack with as many hands on board as would 
man a Black Ball Liner, women among them in red petticoats, 
and handkerchiefs around their faces, some gutting fish, some 
mending nets, some peeling potatoes, and all talking and ges- 
ticulating at once, but suspending both their work and their 
talk to crowd to the smack’s side to stare at the noble English 
vessel ; and sometimes a little open boat at anchor, with a man 
in her fishing wuth deep gravity, and paying no more heed to 
the ship in whose wake his cockle-shell would bob like a cork 
float than were he the only tenant of the great, glittering sur- 
face of water. 

But soon the coast sank low on the horizon. The Meteor was 
standing for the deeper water of the Middle Channel, and 
close-hauled, but with all sails set, she had paled old England 
into a thin blue cloud, and was heading straight for the great 
Atlantic Ocean. 

The night passed ; the morning broke ; but the Meteor was 
not out of the Channel yet. The pilot grumbled as he cast his 
groggy eyes aloft and saw the weather-leaches lifting. He 
would have to go about to fetch Plymouth, unless he had a 
mind to cross the Atlantic, and this was certainly not his in- 
tention. 


2G 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


All the passengers came on deck after breakfast ; the ladies 
brought out their work, the gentlemen lighted cigars, and 
those who had made a voyage before looked knowing as they 
cast their eyes about and asked nautical questions of the cap- 
tain. 

As to the pilot, he was ungetatable. Moreover, his lan- 
guage was so clouded with marine expletives that his lightest 
answer was generally a shock to the sensibilities. 

Every boatman from Margate to Penzance calls himself a 
pilot nowadays ; but the genuine pilot — such a man as this 
who was taking the Meteor down Channel — stands out upon the 
canvas of marine grouping with an individuality that makes 
him unique among seafaring human kind. Figure a square, 
bow-legged man, in a suit of heavy pilot-cloth, a red shawl 
round his neck, a tall hat on his head, a throat the color of an 
uncooked beefsteak, and a face of a complexion like new 
mahogany, small, moist, rolling eyes, a voice resembling the 
tones of a man with the bronchitis calling ' through a tin 
trumpet, and an undying alfection for Jamaica rum. Such was 
Mr. Dumling, the Meteoi'^'s pilot ; a man to whom the gaunt, 
sea-battered posts, the tall skeleton buoys, the fat wallowing 
beacons, and the endless variety of lights ashore and at sea, 
from the North Foreland to the Land’s End, were as familiar 
and intelligible as the alphabet is to you ; who was so pro- 
foundly acquainted with the Channel that he boasted his power 
to tell you within a quarter of a mile of where he was by the 
mere faculty of smell ! A man who could look over a ship’s 
side and say, ‘ ‘ Here are four fathoms of water, and yonder are 
nine ; ” and where the shadow of the cloud rests the water is 
twelve fathoms deep ; ” and so on, every inch of the road, for 
miles and miles — a miracle of memory ! To appreciate the 
value of such a man you should be with him in the Channel 
in a pitch-dark night, blowing great guns from the northeast, 
with the roar of the Goodwin on the lee bow, and a sea so 
heavy that every blow the ship receives communicates the im- 
pression that she has struck the ground, while the black air is 
hoarse with the gale and fogged with stinging spray. 

The wind is nowhere more capricious than in the English 


DOWN CHANNEL. 


27 


Channel. At one o’clock the spanking breeze swept ronnd to 
the southeast ; the watch went to work at the braces ; up 
went the foretop-mast stun’sail, and the Meteor rushed ahead 
at twelve knots an hour. 

‘‘ We shall be off Plymouth at eight o’clock,” says the pilot, 
and went below to lunch, with a serene face. 

He was right. At eight o’clock the Meteor was lying with 
her main-yards backed, dipping her nose in a lively sea, with a 
signal for a boat streaming at her mast-head. 

The passengers might take their last look at old England 
then, while the glorious sunset bathed the land in gold and 
made the wooded shores beautiful with color and shadow. 
And now, dancing over the waters, came a white sail, w^hich 
dimmed slowly into an ashen hue as the crimson in the skies 
faded and the waters darkened. 

‘‘Any letters for shore? ” says Captain Steel, moving among 
the passengers, and soon his hand grows full. Many of the 
men come forward and deliver missives for the wife, for Sue, 
for Poll, to the skipper, who gives them to the pilot. The 
boat, glistening with the sea-water she has shipped, sweeps 
along-side, ducks her sail, and is brought up by a line flung 
from the main-chains. 

“ Good-bye, cap’n,” says the gruff pilot ; “ wish .you a 

pleasant voyage, I’m sure, gen’l’men and ladies drops into 
the main-chains, and from the main-chains drops into the 
boat ; the sail is hoisted, a hat waved, a cheer given from the 
ship’s forecastle, and away bounds the lugger in a cloud of 
spray. 

Now bawls Captain Steel from the break of the poop ; 
round swing the main-yards; the noble ship heels over, 
trembles, and starts forward, and, with the expiring gleam of 
the sunset upon her highest sails, the Meteor heads for the 
broad Atlantic, and glides into the gloom and space of the in- 
finite, windy night. 


28 


JOHN H0LI)8W0mH, CHIEF MATE. 


CHAPTEE IV. 

IN THE ATLANTIC. 

There were eight passengers and twenty-seven hands, count- 
ing captain and officers, on board the Meteor — in all, thirty-five 
souls. 

In these days half that number of men would be thought 
ample to handle a ship of eleven hundred tons. Taking four- 
teen men as a ship’s company, we find — one, the cook, who is 
useless aloft ; five ordinary seamen, equal to two able-bodied 
men ; four ill, and unable to leave their bunks ; the remainder 
consist of the captain, two mates, and the carpenter. So that 
a summons for all hands to shorten sail, for example, brings 
forth about enough men to do the work of one yard — one yard, 
when there are twelve, exclusive of trysails, jibs, stun’sails, 
spanker, and staysails. This modern system of under-manning 
ships is an evil next in magnitude to that of sending crazy and 
leaky vessels to sea ; and as many ships are lost for want of 
hands to work them, on occasions which demand promptitude 
and muscle, as are lost by rotten planks and overcharged car- 
goes. 

The passengers on board the Meteor consisted of four gentle- 
men, two ladies, a little boy, and a female servant. Of the 
gentlemen, one was a young man named Holland, who was 
going to America for no other purpose than to see Niagara ; 
another was a merchant, who was to represent a London house 
in New York. He was accompanied by his wife and her maid. 
The .third was a general in the United States Army, a fine old 
man, with a chivalrous courtesy of manner and a handsome, 
honest face, who had been picking up what professional hints 
he could find by a year’s sojourn in the military depots of 
Great Britain. The fourth male passenger was an actor, mag- 
nificently named Gerald Fitzmaurice St. Aubyn, in quest of 
more appreciative audiences in the New Country than his genius 


IN THE ATLANTIC. 


29 


had encountered in the Old. The widow and her son com- 
j)leted the list. 

It took these good people a very short time to settle down 
to their new life, and adjust themselves to the novel conditions 
of existence that surrounded them. The ladies lay hidden at 
the first going off ; and although Mr. St. Aubyn put in a punc- 
tual appearance at meals and smoked a great quantity of 
cheroots, it must be admitted that he was peculiarly pensive 
for a comedian, whose genius, he affirmed, was chiefly at home 
in genteel farce, though he had enacted tragedy with applause. 

The Meteor met with adverse winds, but brilliant weather, 
during the first few days. She tacked north and south, and 
crowded canvas to make headway, but, though her speed was 
great through the water, her actual progress was small. 

“No matter,” said Captain Steel, patiently ; “we may get a 
gale astern of us some of these hours, and then well make up 
for lost time.” 

But while the weather remained so beautiful, the wind brisk, 
and the sea smooth, the passengers could hardly regret the 
delay. It was like yacht sailing — dry decks, steady motion, 
and always the pleasurable sense of swiftness inspired by the 
beaded foam crisping by, and stretching like a tape astern. 
Now and again they signalled a ship homeward bound or jour- 
neying south. The widow’s little boy clapped his hands to see 
the bright flags flying at the mizzen-peak, and the ladies were 
lost in wonderment to think that those gay colors were a lan- 
guage as intelligible to those concerned in their interpretation 
as “ How do you do ? ” and “ Very well, thank you.” 

The Meteor had a snug cuddy ; and a hospitable sight was 
the dinner-table, with the white cloth covering the long board, 
the gleaming silver and glass, the fine claret-jug (testimonial 
by former passengers to the captain), the colors of wines- in 
decanters, the grinning negro always colliding with the stew- 
ard, and the skipper’s rubicund face, relieved by soft white 
hair, at the head of the table, backed by the polished mizzen- 
mast. . Overhead was the skylight, through which you might 
see the great sails towering to the heavens ; and over the din- 
ner-table swung a globe of goldfish between two baskets of 


30 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


ferns. There was a inano lashed abaft the mizzen-mast ; and 
all around the cuddy were the cabins occupied by the passen- 
gers, the captain, the mates, with highly varnished doors and 
white panels relieved with edgings of gold. 

Everybody took an interest in the widow’s little boy, both 
because he was a pretty child, and because it was whispered 
about that he had lost his father but a few weeks ago. He and 
Holdsworth became great friends, as Holdsworth had said they 
would. Whenever it was the first mate’s watch on deck, the 
little fellow would paddle away from his mother’s side and 
come to him, and ask him to tell him stories, and show him the 
ship’s compass, at which he was never weary of looking. Then 
you might see Holdsworth on a hen-coop or the skylight, with 
the child upon his knee, coining nautical fairy -yarns of people 
who live under the sea, and ride in chariots composed of coral, 
to which fish with scales shining like precious stones are 
harnessed. 

Sometimes the widow, whose name was Tennent, would 
come on deck and find them together, when she would sit be- 
side them and listen with a smile to Holdsworth, whose stories 
the little boy, Louis, would on no account sufier his mamma 
to interrupt. And to repay him for his kindness to the child, 
and not more for that than because she admired his honest 
nature, and was won by his gentle and tender simplicity, she 
would lead him on, with a world of feminine tact, to talk of 
his wife, and comfort and make him happy with her sympathy, 
her interest, and her assurances. 

She was a calm, gentle-faced woman, with a settled sorrow 
in the expression of her eyes that made her look older than 
she was, but her age would scarcely exceed thirty-six. She 
showed little inclination to converse with the other passengers, 
and would retire early at night, and in the daytime sit in quiet 
places about the deck, always with her boy beside her. 

The merchant’s wife, on the other hand, Mrs. Ashton, was a 
gay, talkative woman, a showy dresser, and fond of a quiet 
boast, which her husband, a short man with a yellow beard, 
took care never to contradict. Mr. Holland began to pay her 
attention straightway, and then Mr. St. Aubyn stepped in with 


IJSr THE ATLANTIC, 


31 


theatrical emphasis and smooth observations, like the speeches 
in comedies. Captain Steel, though very polite to this lady, 
inclined to Mrs. Tennent — his sailor’s heart appreciating her 
defencelessness, and propounding all kinds of problems how 
best to amuse, jDlease, and cheer her. But though she could 
not fail to like the honest skipper, she evidently preferred 
Holdsworth, who would go and talk to her for an hour at a 
time about Dolly, and then listen, with a face of kindliest 
sympathy, to little passages out of her own life. 

And so a week went by, and the ship strove with the baffling 
winds which blew directly from the quarter to which her bow- 
sprit should have pointed ; and captain and men began to chafe, 
finding the job of putting the ship about tiresome at last. 

On the seventh day, about the hour of sunset, the wind fell, 
and the surface of the sea became polished as glass, though 
from the northeast there came, through the mighty expanse 
of water, a long and regular swell, which made the ship rise 
and fall as regularly as the breath of a sleeper. 

“We shall have the wind from that quarter, I think, sir,” 
said Holdsworth to the skipper. 

“ Or is this an after-swell, Mr. Holdsworth ? ” suggested the 
skipper, sending his keen gaze across the sea to the horizon, 
where the sky was as blue as it was overhead. 

There was no telling. This long and regular swell might be 
the precursor of a gale, or the effects of one that had passed. 
The barometer had fallen, but this might only indicate a 
southerly wind, not necessarily dirty weather. The heavens 
were perfectly tranquil ; the day was fading into a serene and 
gloriously beautiful evening, with no hint in all its benign as- 
pect to suggest the need of the slightest precaution. 

Mrs. Ashton was at the piano, accompanying Mr. St. Aubyn 
in a song, which he sang so affectedly that some of the hands 
forward mimicked him, and the forecastle seemed full of 
guinea-pigs. 

Her husband popped his head over the sky-light and called 
to her to come and view the sunset. Up she came, escorted 
by Mr. Holland and the actor, flounced showily into a chair, 
and fell into a rapture, 


32 


JOHN HOLDSWOETU, CHIEF MATE. 


“ Oh, how beautiful ! The sea looks like gold, doesn’t it, 
Captain Steel ? See how red the sails are ! Ah, if I could 
only paint, what fame such a picture as this would bring 
me! ” 

True ; but then what manner of pigments was needful to 
reproduce the glory, the color, the calm, the infinity, of that 
wonderful scene ! 

The sun was sinking down a cloudless horizon, and was now 
a vast crimson ball, throbbing and quivering with his lower 
limb upon the sea-line. There was something overwhelming 
in the unspeakable majesty of his unattended descent. As the 
huge crimson body appeared to hang for some moments above 
the sea before dipping; even Mrs. Ashton held her tongue, and 
seemed impressed with the tremendous spectacle of loneliness 
submitted by the globe of fire sinking away from the sky with 
the vast solitude of the deep in the foreground. Far into the 
measureless ocean he had sunk, a cone of fire, while the 
heights around him were dim with burning haze. The sails 
of the Meteor were yellow in the expiring light ; her top-masts 
seemed veined with lines of flame ; and the brasswork about 
her decks reflected innumerable suns, each with threads of 
glory about it that blinded the eyes to encounter. 

But even while they gazed the sun vanished, and darkness 
came with long strides across the deep, kindling the stars, and 
transforming the masts and yards of the ship into phantom 
tracery as delicate as frost-work to look at. 

“ Upon my word ! ” exclaimed Mr. Holland, in a tone of 
rapture, “that’s as fine a sight as I must hope to see any- 
where.” 

“If you could introduce a scene like that, Mr. St. Aubyn, 
on the stage, eh ? ” laughed the general. 

“Why, as to that,” replied Mr. St. ilubyn, “ let me tell you, 
general, that there are some very fine scenes to be found in 
the large theatres in London. In the second act of ‘ Pizarro,’ 
as I saw it the other night at Drury Lane, there’s a scene rep- 
resenting the Temple of the Sun ; the sun is setting — and 
God knows how they managed it, but the sun did sink, not like 
yonder one, but very finely in clouds, just as Atabila exclaims, 


IN THE ATLANTIC. 


33 


drawing his sword, ‘ Now, my brethren, my sons, my friends, 
I know yonr valor. Should ill-snccess assail us ’ 

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Mr. Holland, impatiently; “but I 
always considered ‘ Pizarro,’ as a play, to be full of very poor 
rant. Who talks in real life like the fellows in that piece are 
made to talk ? ” 

“ My dear sir ! ” exclaimed Mr. St. Aubyn, with a smile of 
contempt, “ the stage is the arena of xroetry ; we are idealists.” 

“ Because you never mean what you say,” said Mr. Ashton, 
lighting a cigar. 

“Oh, excuse me,” rejoined Mr. St. Aubyn; “true actors 
arc always in earnest. Siddons was.” 

“ I once met Sarah Siddons,” said Mrs. Ashton. “ Do you 
remember, dear, at Lord Shortlands ? ” addressing her husband. 

“I was only once at a theatre in my life,” observed Captain 
Sfceel, who had been listening to the conversation with an im- 
pressed face. “ That was at Plymouth. They gave us our 
money’s worth. There was plenty of fighting, and love-making, 
and two traitors, both of whom died game and covered with 
blood. There was a little too much gunpowder at the end ; 
but I rather think they raised smoke to hide the acting, which 
fell off as the piece made head-way. The best part of the en- 
tertainment, to my thinking, was a fight between two sailors 
in a private box. Mr. St. Aubyn, where do you gentlemen, 
when you are run through the body, stow all the blood you 
lose ? That’s often puzzled me to think. ” 

“ Oh, don’t let me hear,” cried Mrs. Ashton. “ I hate to be 
told such secrets.” 

“ Cax)tain,” said the general, “how long is this calm going to 
last ? ” 

“All night, I am afraid. How’s her head?” sang out the 
captain. 

“ East-south- east, sir,” responded the man at the wheel. 

“ We’re homeward bound,” said the captain, laughing ; “ the 
old girl wants to get back again.” 

He walked away from the group, and stood near the wheel, 
gazing aloft and around. The passengers continued talking 
and laughing, their voices sounding unreal when listened to at 
3 


34 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


a distance, and with the great, desolate, silent sea breathing 
around. The sails flapped lazily aloft, and the wheel-chains 
clanked from time to time as the vessel rose and fell. Mrs. 
Tennent came on deck, the captain joined her, and they walked 
up and down. On the other side of the deck paced the second 
mate. Forward were the dark shadows of some of the hands 
upon the forecastle, smoking pipes and talking in low voices. 

The night had fallen darkly ; there was no moon, but the 
stars were large and brilliant, and glittered in flakes of white 
light in the sea. Presently a fiddle was played in the fore- 
castle, and a voice sung a mournful tune that sounded weirdly 
in the gloom, and with a muffled note. The air and voice were 
not without sweetness, but there was the melancholy in it 
which many songs popular among sailors have, and the wailing 
cadence was helped out by the ghostly sails rearing their 
glimmering spaces, and the subdued plash of the water about 
the bows, as the ship sank into the hollows of the swell. 

Mrs. Tennent stopped, with the captain, at the poop-rail to 
listen. 

‘‘What odd music ! ” cried Mrs. Ashton. “It sounds as if 
some one were playing out in the sea there.” 

“Let’s have the fiddler here,” said Mr. Holland. “I like 
to enlarge my mind by observation, and have never yet heard 
a real Jack Tar sing.” 

“ Oh yes ! oh yes ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, while Mr. St. 
Aubyn called out, “ I’ll go and fetch him.” 

“Better stop where you are, sir,” said the skipper, dryly; 
“the forecastle’s a dangerous hold for landsmen to put their 
heads into. Mr. Thompson,” he called to the second mate, 
“just go and send that fiddler aft here.” 

Presently came the man, followed at a respectful distance by 
a crowd of his mates, who drew to the capstan on the quarter- 
deck, and waited for what was to follow. 

The fiddler and vocalist was a stumpy seaman, vdth black 
whiskers, a hooked nose, and keen black eyes, dressed in loose 
canvas breeches well smeared with tar, and a canvas shirt, vdth 
a belt about his middle, in which was a sheath-knife. He hailed 
from Southampton, but had gone so many voyages in every 


IN THE ATLANTIC. 


35 


species of ships — Danish, French, Spanish, American — that he 
might fairly claim to belong to the whole world. 

He scraped with his left foot, and stood bashfully awaiting 
orders, his glittering eyes travelling over the group of gentle- 
men and ladies. 

‘‘ You’re wanted to sing a song, Daniels,” said Captain Steel. 

“ Ay, ay, sir. What might it be ? ” 

Something wild and plaintive,” suggested Mrs. Ashton. 

“ Give us a song about a sweetheart,” said Mr. Holland. 

This was English to the sailor ; so, after a few moments’ re- 
flection, he screwed his fiddle into his neck, scraped a few bars, 
and then sang. 

He did his best, and murmurs from time to time about the 
capstan illustrated enthusiastic appreciation in one portion of 
his audience at least. Those on the poop were more quiet, 
impressed by the peculiar wildness of the song and the rough, 
uncouth melody of the tune. 

The song was about a woman whose husband was a sailor. 
The sailor went away to sea, and did not come home, and she 
thought he had deserted her ; so she put on man’s clothes, 
shipped on board a vessel as ‘‘a hand,” and went in search of 
him. One night she is on the forecastle on the lookout. The 
watch are asleep, there’s not a breath of air, 

“ When, looking over the starboard side, 

She sees a face as pale 
As snow upon a mountain-top, 

Or moonlight on a sail. 

The figure attached to the face rises, waist high, out of the 
water, and extends his hands. 

“ ‘ O God ! ’ she screams, ‘ is this my love ? 

Can this my Joey be ? ’ 

And then she casts her eyes above 
And jumps into the sea.” 

And sure enough the phantom was Joey, who had not deserted 
her, as she had cruelly thought, but had been drowned in the 
very spot where the vessel she was on board of was becalmed. 


3G 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


The song wound up with an injunction to all wives or sweet- 
hearts of sailors never to think that their Joes have played 
them false because they do not return to their homes. 

The passengers thanked the man for his song, and Mrs. Ash- 
ton wanted another ; but Captain Steel, holding that enough 
condescension had been exhibited, bade the singer go to the 
steward and get a ‘‘tot of grog.” 

Much criticism followed ; but all, with the exception of Mr. 
St. Aubyn, owned themselves impressed by the rough sim- 
plicity and tragical theme of the forecastle ballad* 

“ Pshaw ! ” cried the actor ; “ put the man on a stage before 
an audience, and he’d be hissed off. It’s the queer scratching 
of the catgut and the picturesque costume of the fellow that 
have pleased you. His voice isn’t good enough to get him the 
post of call-boy at a theatre. ” 

A warm argument followed this decision, and lasted nearly 
half an hour, during which the general and Mr. Ashton left the 
group ; then the steward’s bell rang, and the passengers went 
below to their nightly potations and to munch sweet biscuits. 


CHAPTEE V. 

A GALE OF WIND. 

At midnight Holdsworth came on deck to relieve the second 
mate. A man out of the port watch came to the wheel, and 
stood yawning, scarcely awake. The night was dark — a hazy 
atmosphere, through which the stars gleamed sparely, and the 
sea like ebony. The rise and fall of the ship flapped the sails 
against the masts and drove eddies of air about the decks, but in 
reality there was not a breath of wind. 

There was something stupendous in the black, profound, and 
breathless placidity of the night. The compass swung round 
in the binnacle anywhere, but the swell made the rudder kick 
heavily now and again, and gave the wheel a twist that flung 
the spokes out of the man’s hand and woke him up. 


A OALE OF WIND, 


37 


This prolonged inactivity was galling. One longed to liear 
the rush of parting water and the singing of the wind in the 
shrouds. 

The main-sail flapped so heavily that Holdsworth ordered it 
to be fuiied. The song of the men brought the captain on 
deck. He flitted, shadow-like, about the binnacle, sniffed at 
the night impatiently, and then went to Holdsworth. 

‘‘ The glass has fallen half an inch since eight bells,” said 
he. 

“ Yes, sir ; there’ll be a change before morning.” 

“ Better stow the royals and mizzen-top-gairns’l.” 

“Ay, ay, sir.” 

These, the topmost sails of the ship, were just discernible 
from the deck. In a few moments their dim outlines melted, 
and some dark figures went up into the gloom and vanished. 

The captain returned to his cabin, and Holdsworth strolled 
the deck. At two bells (one o’clock) the haze went out of the 
sky and the stars shone fiercely. Holdsworth, standing on the 
starboard side of the poop, felt a light air creeping about his 
face, and the sound of the flapping sails ceased. 

“ How’s her head ? ” 

“ North-a-quar ter- west, sir.” 

He sang out an order, and a crowd of figures came tumbling 
out of the forecastle and manned the port braces. The air 
died away, but presently came a quick puff which made the 
water bubble around the ship. 

Holdsworth’s eyes were upon the weather horizon. The 
stars burned purely, but away upon the water-line was a thick 
shadow. 

Again the wind died out, and there was a breathless still- 
ness, amid which you might hear a sound — ^vague, murmurous, 
indescribable — a distant echo it might seem of something 
infinitely distant. 

“ Stand by the top-gallant halyards ! ” 

A sense of expectation seemed to pervade the very ship her- 
self as she stood upright, with her dim canvas flapping in the 
darkness above. 

The distant murmur grew more defined, and took such a 


38 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


tone as you may hear in small sharp rain falling at a distance 
upon leaves. Then, out of the murky horizon some clouds 
came rolling — long, attenuated shadows, resembling visionary 
arms clutching at the stars. The murmur approached ; the 
clouds, swinging along the sky, formed into compact groups. 
Hark to the quick hissing of the water lashed by the wind ! 

In a moment the sails were round and hard, the ship with 
her port-chains under water, and the wind screeching fiercely 
over the ebony surface of the sea and whitening it with foam. 

The captain was on the poop, holding on to the main-t op- 
gallant backstay, and shrieking orders like one possessed. It 
was, indeed, briefly, a case of ‘‘ Let go everything !” Under 
full topsail, foresail, staysails, and jibs, the ship was too 
heavily weighted for the surprising violence of the wind, and 
was powerless to right herself. But every order given was the 
right one. And now you heard the deep tones of Holdsworth’s 
powerful voice mingling with the agitated commands of the 
skipper, while yards came rushing down upon the caps, and 
sails banged and roared aloft, and men shouted lustily about 
the decks, and the sea fled in cataracts of foam under the ves- 
sel’s bows. 

A time of deep excitement, but scarcely of suspense — there 
was too much hurrying for that. 

There would have been something incredible to an inexperi- 
enced landsman in the sight of the dark figures swarming up 
the shrouds to give battle to the wild array of canvas which 
groaned and bellowed like a dozen thunder-storms in the 
sky — a spectacle of human pluck not to be realized, or in the 
faintest degree appreciated, by those who have not beheld it. 
The night black ; the yards slanting so that the extremity of 
the main-yard touched the water ; the footing upon those yards 
a thin line which must be felt for by the feet ; the canvas, 
loosened by the lowering of the yard, bellied by the force of 
the wind many feet above the heads of the reefers, and pre- 
senting to their hands a surface of iron ; and the three masts 
quivering under the shocks and convulsions of the sails ! 

All hands were at work now, and there were men enough to 
reef both big top-sails at once, while others over their heads 


A OALE OF WIND. 


39 


furled the top-gallant sails. Holdsworth had been one of the 
first to spring up the main -rigging ; he knew the value of 
every pair of hands in that moment of danger ; and away — 
active, daring, his hands and arms like steel — he clambered 
for the weather-earing. But the boatswain was before him, 
so he made for the lee yard-arm. 

Figure a smooth spar, forty-five feet long, sloping at a height 
of as many feet to the water’s surface, the said surface not 
being a mill-pond, but a sheet of foam ; figure a pitch-dark 
night, a line stretched along the yard down which you must 
slide to the extremity, a sail weighing half-a-dozen tons bang- 
ing at your head and your feet, and doing its utmost to throw 
you ; then, having reached the extremity of the yard, figure 
your legs thrown across it as you might bestride a horse, be- 
neath you the foaming sea, almost at right angles the inclined 
deck of the ship, a long stone’s-throw distant — a deep darkness 
everywhere, save where a wave, breaking massively, flings out 
a phosphorescent light and deepens the blackness of its own 
chasm — while the gale yells about your ears, and blinds you 
with spray that stings like hail ! 

Figure this, and you will then veiy faintly realize what 
“ taking the lee-earing ” in a gale at sea means. 

The cries of the men aloft, and the beating of the canvas, 
sounded like an unearthly contest in mid-air ; but they ceased 
presently, and then the hands came hurrying down the rigging 
and fell to the halyards. Holdsworth sprang on to the poop, 
his cap gone, his hair blown about his eyes, and roared out 
orders, while the captain, more easy in his mind about his 
spars, went aft and hung about the binnacle, watching the com- 
pass often. 

The ship was now under double-reefed topsails, and reeling 
through the darkness almost bare of sail. The wind was in- 
creasing in violence every five minutes, and an ugly Atlantic 
sea was running right athwart the ship’s course, hurling great 
waves against her starboard beam, which ran in water-spouts 
of foam as high as the main-top, and was blown in big, hissing 
flakes through the rigging to leeward. It was soon deemed 
expedient to close reef the top-sails ; but even under these 


40 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


mere streaks of canvas the Meteo)' lay over to the gale down to 
her water-ways, with the water bubbling in her lee scuppers. 
But luckily the gale was right abeam, and the vessel could 
hold her course ; but her speed was comparatively small, and 
she labored heavily. 

So passed the darkest hours of the night. At four o’clock 
the gale was at its worst. They had rigged up a hurricane- 
house in the mizzen-rigging — a square of tarpaulin, which the 
wind flattened hard against the shrouds — and under this 
shelter sat Holdsworth and the captain, scarce able to hear 
their own voices, pitched in the loudest key, amid the howling 
of the tempest. Once Holdsworth went below to look at the 
glass, and came back saying it was steady. The skipper roared 
that he never before remembered so sudden a gale, and Holds- 
worth owned that only once was he so caught — in the Pacific, 
when they lost their foretop-mast. 

There was nothing more to be done unless they hove the 
ship to ; but this was not needful. The dawn broke at five, 
and the pale, cheerless light illuminated a wild and dreary 
scene of tumbling desolate waters billowing in mountains to 
the horizon. The Meteor, almost under bare poles, her yards 
pointed to the gale, her ropes and lines blown in semicircles 
to leeward, labored heavily, caught now by a sea that threw 
her on her beam-ends, and now swooping into a chasm walled 
with boiling green water, making the gale screech like a mil- 
lion steam-whistles through her rigging, as she drove up 
against it, while coiling tongues of water ran in cataracts up 
her glistening sides and fell in dead weights upon her deck. 
The sky, from horizon to horizon, was a dark lead color, along 
which under clouds, in appearance resembling volumes of 
smoke, were swept along, torn and rent, and discharging at 
intervals quick, biting showers of rain. 

Some of the passengers came on deck— the general, Mr. Hol- 
land, and Mr. St. Aubyn. The general turned about when he 
had advanced a few feet, and disappeared ; Mr. Holland in a 
very short time followed his example ; but the actor, with 
manifest looks of ten-or in his pallid face, pushed onward with 
out-stretched hands for the hurricane-house. The captain ad- 


A GALE OF WIND. 


41 


vised him to go below ; but at that moment the ship, rolling 
suddenly to windward, shipped a shower of spray, which 
soaked the poor actor through and through ; a moment after, 
the vessel heeled heavily over to leeward ; away rolled the 
actor, impelled both by the wind and the unerring law of 
gravitation, and was flung against the lee mizzen-rigging, to 
which he was pinned by the violence of the gale as effectually 
as if he had been lashed to the shrouds. He screamed for 
help, on which Holdsworth went over to him, took him by the 
arm, and dragged him against the wind to the companion- 
hatchway. As Mr. St. Aubyn staggered below, clinging like 
a kitten to whatever he could lay hands on, he was heard to 
implore Holdsworth to tell him if there was any danger ; but, 
before the words were out of his mouth, Holdsworth was 
clinging to the weather-rigging and calling the captain’s atten- 
tion to a brig, which had risen out of the sea like an appa- 
rition, and was tearing before the gale with full top-sails and 
top-gallant sails set. 

“ A Yankee, by her build ! ” said the captain. “It’s only a ) 
JTankee who would carry that sail in such a wind.” 

It was a sight to see her flying along, sinking her hull some- 
times out of sight, then poised on the giddy summit of a huge 
wave, whose crest broke under her bows, her copper bottom 
glistening like red gold against the slate-colored water. She 
passed within a quarter of a mile of the Meteor's weather -beam, 
and up flew the stripes and stars and stood like a painted 
board at her peak. The second mate answered the salutation 
by bending on the small ensign and running it up. Any 
further signalling was out of the question in that gale. The 
men on board the brig could just be made out. She was a 
smart vessel, black-hulled, with bows like a knife, and skysail 
poles, which gave her masts an aspect of perfect symmetry ; and 
she was splendidly handled. She went like a swan over the 
seething billows, streaming a foaming wake, and in a very few 
moments was lost in the haze and gloom of the near horizon. 

As the morning advanced the gale decreased, but a terrible 
sea was up, which made the ship labor so furiously that to 
steady her in some degree they set the trysail and foresail. 


42 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


There was, however, the comfort of daylight abroad, and the 
men could see what they were about. Both Holdsworth and 
the captain went below to get a little sleep, and the vessel was 
left in command of the second mate, a young man named 
Thompson. There were two hands at the wheel and two on 
the lookout on the forecastle, glittering in oil- skins, and duck- 
ing now and again to the seas which swept over the ship’s 
bows. 

The fore and main hatches were battened down, and the 
main-deck was a foot deep in water, which washed to and fro 
as the ship rolled, and which, as fast as it ran through the 
scupper-holes, was replaced by fresh and heavy inroads of the 
sea. 

But all this was trifling ; the vessel was snug, the gale was 
moderating, and the extra sail that had been made was driving 
the ship through the water in fine style. 

Meanwhile, the passengers below, having been re-assured by 
the captain, were making what breakfast they could off the 
rolls, tea, and rashers of ham which clattered about the table 
and tumbled into their laps. The trays swung wildly from the 
deck, and it demanded great vigilance and close attention to 
their convulsive movements to repossess one’s self of the cup 
or plate one placed upon them for safety. The negro steward 
shambled round the table, halting every moment to make a 
grasp at anything that came in his road to steady himself. 
Now and again you heard the smash of crockery. Some con- 
versation was attempted, and the general invited Mr. Holland 
to go up on deck and witness a scene which would probably 
exceed in majesty Niagara Falls ; but Mr. Holland said he 
would wait until the vessel was steadier. Mr. St. Aubyn had 
changed his clothes and sat holding on to the table, looking 
the part of fear infinitely better than he could hope to imper- 
sonate it before the foot-lights. The ladies remained in their 
cabins. Mrs. Ashton, overcome with sickness and the fear of 
drowning, was driving her maid distracted with orders which 
it was out of the poor wretch’s power to execute. In truth, 
the maid’s legs were perfectly useless to her, which Mrs. Ash- 
ton, lying on her back, refused to understand. Cries were 


A GALE OF WIND, 


43 


repeatedly coming from the direction of her cabin for “ Harry ! 
Harry !” which received no attention, owing to HaiTy’s — in 
other words, to Mr. Ashton’s — utter incapacity to move a step 
without being flung upon the deck. 

A somewhat different scene was presented by the interior of 
the forecastle, where both watches were having breakfast. 
Men holding tin pannikins stepped easily round to the galley, 
where the cook was dispensing a milkless, sugarless black 
fluid called tea, and retreated into the twilight of the fore- 
castle, carrying the steaming beverage. There sat the sailors, 
some swinging in hammocks with their legs dangling down, 
some on sea-chests, some on canvas bags, drinking from pan- 
nikins, swallowing lumps of biscuit hard as iron, or hacking 
with the knives they wore in their belts at bits of cold pork or 
beef floating in vinegar in tin dishes held between theii* knees ; 
some smoking, some making ready to ‘‘ turn in,” and all jab- 
bering away as gaily as if they were comfortably seated in a 
Liverpool or Poplar singing house — the mariner’s earthly para- 
dise — and each with his Sue or his Betsey by his side. Here, 
more than in any other part of the ship, you felt her motion — 
the mighty lifting of her bows, and the long sweeping fall as 
she pitched nose under, while the heavy seas boomed against 
her outside as though at any moment the timbers must dispart 
and the green waves rush in. 

At twelve o’clock the gale had decreased to such a degree 
that they were able to shake two reefs out of the main-top-sail 
and set the top-gallant sail. The action of the sea, moreover, 
was much less violent. The weather had cleared, the pale 
blue sky could be seen shining through the white mist that 
fled along it, and the sun stood round and clean and coppery 
in the heavens, throwing a dark red lustre upon the quick, 
passionate play of the sea beneath. 

Some of the passengers crawled upon deck and gazed with 
wonderment around them. Certainly the panorama was a 
somewhat different one from what had been unrolled to their 
eyes the day before. The ship had a fagged and jaded look 
with her drenched decks, her ropes blown slack with the 
violence of the wind, and the canvas made unequal to the eye 


44 : 


JOHN HOLDSWOBTH, CHIEF MATE, 


by the reefs in the toj)-sails. It was again Holdsworth’s watch 
on deck. The captain walked np and down, chuckling over 
the improved aspect of the weather and on the wind, which 
was drawing more easterly, and therefore more favorable. 

“ You can shake out the reefs, Mr. Holdsworth. Shell bear 
it now,” he called out. 

Out reefs it was : the ship felt the increased pressure, and 
rushed forward like a liberated race-horse. 

‘‘ This is capital ! ” exclaimed the old general, tottering 
about with out-stretched hands, ever on the alert for a special 
roll. ‘ ‘ A week of this, captain, will carry us a good way on our 
road.” 

“ Ay, sir, and we must make up for lost time.” 

And then presently he gave orders to set the main-sail and 
the other two top-gallant sails. 

‘‘ The glass still keeps low, sir,” said Holdsworth. 

‘‘But let’s take advantage of the daylight, Mr. Holdsworth. 
We mustn’t lose an opportunity.” 

The sky had now cleared, the sun shone cheerily ; the 
wind, having drawn aft, was now no more than what sailors 
would call a main-royal breeze. The foretop-mast stun’ sail 
was set. The passengers regained their spirits, and though 
the ship still rolled pretty freely, Mr. St. Aubyn and Mr. Hol- 
land, to show that they were now masters of their legs, walked 
up and down the deck, diversifying their conversation with 
sundry stumbles, and now and then by falling against each 
other. But the bright sunshine made such contretemps a 
source of merriment. Moreover, the ladies were on deck now, 
Mrs. Ashton having been pushed up the companion-ladder by 
her husband, who, in his turn, had met with great assistance 
behind from the kindly hands of the negro steward, who was 
anxious to get them both out of the cuddy that he might show 
his teeth to the maid-servant. Captain Steel, seeing Mrs. 
Ashton attended by the other gentlemen, who were industrious 
in their inquiries after her nerves, gallantly gave his arm to 
the widow, while her little boy ran to Holdsworth, who took 
his hand, kissed and began to talk to him, finding endless 
pleasure in looking into his eyes and humoring the suggestions 


TAKEN ABACK! 


45 


of home life, of flowers, of woman’s love, of his own wife, 
which were somehow conveyed to him by the boy’s prattle, 
and wise child-smiles, and perfect innocence. 


CHAPTEE yi. 

TAKEN ABACK ! 

At five o’clock the wind was southeast ; a fresh breeze, with 
a lively sea and a cloudy sky. The wind being aft, the ship 
sailed on an even keel, to the great comfort of the passengers, 
who found the inclined decks intolerable. 

From the aspect of the sea, it was evident that the ship had 
got into water which had not been touched by the gale of the 
morning — of such narrow proportions sometimes are the tem- 
pests which sweep the ocean. Away northward, whither the 
clouds were rolling, there loomed a long, low, smoke-colored 
bank of cloud or fog, so exactly resembling a coast seen from 
a distance that the passengers were deceived, and some of them 
called out that yonder was land. 

“ Tell us now, captain,” cried Mrs. Ashton ; “it is land, 
isn’t it ? ” 

“ Why, madam,” rejoined the captain, “ for anything I can 
tell, it may be Laputa. ” 

“ Or Utopia,” suggested the general, “ the land of idealisms 
and paradisaical institutions.” 

Mrs. Ashton laughed, seeing the joke, but Mr. St. Aubyn, 
conceiving that they were talking of real countries, proposed 
that the captain should head the vessel for the shore. 

“No, no ! too far out of my course,” answered the skipper, 
with a wise shake of the head. “ It would make a Flying 
Dutchman of the ship were we once to set to work to reach that 
land.” 

“If I really thought it Utopia,” said the general, stroking 
his mustache, “I would beg you to land me at once, so eager 
am I to witness the condition of a people living under a form 
of government the like of which, for wisdom, humanity, and 


46 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


availability, is not to be met with in any other part of the 
world. But it may be Laputa, as you suggested.” 

“ Or Lilliput,” said Mr. Holland ; whereupon the actor, 
percei\dng that a joke was playing at his expense, scowled 
dramatically at the bank of cloud, and muttered that, for his 
part, when he asked a civil question he usually looked for a 
truthful answer. 

Just then a voice forward shouted out, A sail on the lee 
bow ! ” 

There is always something exciting in this cry at sea. Storms 
and calms grow wearisome after a bit, but the interest that 
clusters about a vessel met on the broad deep never loses its 
freshness. The captain went for his telescope, and, after a 
brief inspection, announced the vessel to be a large bark going 
the same road as themselves. Mrs. Ashton asked leave to look 
through the telescope, and a good deal of coquettish by-play 
took place ; for first she shut both eyes, and then she couldn’t 
see at all ; and then she shut the eye that looked through the 
telescope, and, keeping the other open, declared that she 
could see better without the glass. Then the telescope 
wouldn’t keep steady ; so Mr. St. Aubyn went upon his knees 
and begged her to use his shoulder for a rest. At last, after 
an infinity of trouble, and when the cramp was just beginning 
to seize the actor’s legs, she obtained a glimpse of the bark 
as it swept through the field of the glass, and owned herself 
delighted and satisfied. 

The Metem' came up with the stranger hand-oVer-fist, keep- 
ing to windward of her ; and soon she was no farther than a 
mile off, a big hull high in the water, bare and black, with 
round bows and a square stern. They hoisted the ensign on 
board the Meteor, but the bark showed no colors. 

“ Some sour North-countryman, I reckon,” said Captain 
Steel. “ She has a Newcastle cut.” 

She w^as under full sail, but just when the Meteor got abreast 
of her she clewed her royals up, down came the flying and 
outer jibs, and the top-gallant yards. 

“What is she afraid of ? ” exclaimed Captain Steel, gazing at 
her curiously. 


TAKEN ABACK! 


47 


You could see the pygmy figures of the men clambering up 
the rigging, and presently down fell the top-sail yards and ui:> 
went more figures, and the spars were dotted with heads. Any- 
thing more picturesque than this vessel — her black hull rolling 
majestically, her white sails vanishing even as you watched them, 
her rigging marked against the cloudy sky, the sense of the 
noisy activity on board of her, of which no faintest echo stole 
across the water, and all between the tumbling, cloud-colored 
waters — cannot be imagined. The crew of the Meteor watched 
her with curiosity ; but she now fell rapidly astern, and in a 
short time could be seen clearly only by the telescope, which 
Captain Steel held to his eye, speculating upon her move- 
ments. 

The dinner-bell rang. It was now the first dog-watch. 
Thompson, the second mate, came on deck, and the passengers 
went to dinner. The sunlight had a watery gleam in it as the 
lengthening rays fell upon the skylight, and Holdsworth’s eyes 
constantly wandered to the sails, which were visible through 
the glass. The skipper was in high humor, and during dinner 
laughed at the bark they had passed for shortening sail under 
a blue sky. 

‘‘ 111 wager a hat,” he exclaimed, “that she’s commanded by 
a Scotchman, even if she don’t hail from a North British port. 
I don’t mean to say that your Scotchman’s a timid man, but 
he’s unco’ thoughtful. My first skipper was a Sawney, and 
every night, as regularly as the second dog-watch came round, 
it was ‘ In royals and flying-jib, and a single reef in the miz- 
zen-top-sail.” 

“ But there must be some reason for the bark furling her 
sails,” said the general. 

“From his point of view, no doubt, sir. You have seen 
what the weather has been all the afternoon ? ” 

“ The wind is dropping, sir,” said Holdsworth, looking 
through the skylight. 

He had an uneasy expression in his eyes, and he frequently 
glanced at the skipper ; but etiquette of a very severe kind 
prohibited him from imparting his misgivings of a change in 
the face of the skipper’s manifest sense of security. 


48 


JOHN II0LD8W0RTII, CHIEF MATE. 


‘‘ It may freshen after sunset,” rejoined the skipper. “ Mr. 
Holland, the pleasure of a glass of wine ” 

The conversation drifted into other channels. Mrs. Ashton 
gave an account of a country ball she had attended a week or 
two before she left England, and described the dress she wore 
on that occasion, appealing often to her husband to aid her 
memory, and riveting the attention of Mr. St. Aubyn. Then 
the general talked of the garrison towns he had visited, and 
paid some handsome compliments to the British army, and to 
English society in general. Mrs. Tennent, seated on the 
captain’s right hand, with her boy at her side, listened to, with- 
out joining in, the conversation. 

Holdsworth’s eyes roamed incessantly through the sky- 
light. 

It happened presently that the general, in speaking of the 
beauty of English inland scenery, mentioned the county in 
which Southbourne was situated, and instanced in particular the 
country around Han witch, a town lying not half a dozen miles 
from Southbourne. Holdsworth pricked his ears and joined in 
the conversation. He had reason to remember Hanwitch. One 
of the happiest days he had spent, during the three months he 
had been ashore, was that in which he had driven Dolly over 
to that town, and dined in the queer little hotel that fronted a 
piece of river-scenery as beautiful as any that is to be found 
up the Thames. 

While he and the general talked, the skipper argued with 
Mr. St. Aubyn on the merits of the English as a paying people. 
St. Aubyn declared that the English public, taken in the 
aggregate, was a mean public, rarely liberal, and then liberal 
in wrong directions, supporting quack institutions, responding 
to quack appeals, and ignoring true excellence, especially his- 
trionic excellence. Both grew warm ; then Mr. Holland joined 
in. He sent the discussion wandering from the point, and in 
stepped Mr. Ashton. 

Meanwhile the decanters went round, the cuddy grew dark, 
and the negro was looking at the steward for orders to light the 
swinging lamps. 

Hark ! 


TAKEN ABACK! 


49 


/ A loud cry from the deck, followed by a sudden rush of feet, 
and the ship heeled over — over — yet over ! 

The women shrieked, the daylight turned black, plates, de- 
canters, cutlery, glass, rolled from the table and fell with quick 
crashes. The decks fore and aft echoed with loud calls. You 
could hear the water gurgling in the lee port -holes. A keen 
blue gleam flashed upon the skylight ; but if thunder followed 
the lightning it was inaudible amid the wild and continuous 
shrieking of the wind. 

The skipper and Holdsworth scrambled to the companion- 
ladder and gained the deck. In a trice they saw w^hat had hap- 
pened. The ship, with all sail set, had been taken aback. 

Away to windward, in the direction directly contrary to where 
the wind had been blowing before dinner, the sky was livid, 
flinging an early night upon the sea, and sending forth a tem- 
pest of wind that tore the water into shreds of foam. The 
whole force of the hurricane was upon the ship’s canvas, which 
lay backed against the masts, and the vessel lay on her beam- 
ends, her masts making an angle of forty degrees with the 
horizon. 

The confusion was indescribable. Every halyard had been 
let go ; but the yards were jammed by the sails, and would not 
descend. The clew-lines were manned, but the sheets would 
not stir an inch through the blocks. Nor was the worst of the 
squall, tempest, hurricane, whatever it may be, upon them 
yet ; that livid pall of cloud which the lightning was seaming 
with zigzag fire was still to come, and with the full fury its 
scowling aspect portended. 

“ My God !” thundered the skipper to the second mate, who 
stood white, cowed, and apparently helpless, “ what have you 
brought us into ? ” 

The wheel was jammed hard a-starboard, but the ship lay 
like a log, broadside on to the wind, the masts bowed almost 
on a level with the water. 

“ Haul ! for your lives, men, haul ! ” shrieked the skipper 
frantically to the men, who appeared paralyzed by the sudden 
catastrophe, and stood idly with the clew- lines and reef -tackles 
passed along them. 

4 


50 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


Holdsworth, half-waj up the weather poop-ladder, his head 
above the bulwarks, saw sooner than the captain what was about 
to happen. 

“ Crowd to windward, all hands ! ” he roared. There was no 
time to saj more ; the great, broad, livid cloud was upon them 
even while Holdsworth sang out the command ; the men held 
their breath — unless the masts went, the vessel was doomed. 

Crash ! A noise of wood shivered into splinters, of flogging 
ropes and sails thundering their tatters upon the wind ; the 
fore and main masts went as you would break a clay pipe-stem 
across your knee — the first, just below the top, the other clean 
off at the deck ; and the huge mass of spars, ropes, and sails 
lay quivering and rolling along-side — a portion on deck, but 
the greater bulk of them in the water — grinding into the ves- 
sel’s side as if she had grounded upon a shoal of rocks. 

The ship righted, and then another crash ; away went the 
mizzen-topmast, leaving the spanker and cross- jack set. The 
wind caught these sails and swept the ship’s head round 
right in the eye of the storm, and off she drove to leeward, dis- 
abled, helpless, dragging her shattered spars with her, like 
something living its torn and mangled limbs. 

There was no situation in the whole range of the misfor- 
tunes which may befall a ship at sea more critical than the one 
the Meteor was now in. The sea was rising quickly, and leap- 
ing high over the ship’s bows, pouring tons of water in upon 
the decks (the weight of the wreck along-side preventing the 
vessel from rising to the waves) and carrying whatever had be- 
come unlashed — casks, spare spars, and the like— aft to the 
cuddy front, against which they were launched with a vio- 
lence that broke the windows, and soon promised to demolish 
the woodwork. 

But the worst part of the business was, the action of the sea 
set the spars in the water and the hull of the ship rolling 
against each other, and the thump, thump, thump of the 
bristly wreck against the vessel’s side sent a hollow undertone 
through the hooting of the tempest that was awful to hear. 

Though the mizzen-mast still stood, the weight of the other 
masts in falling had severely wrenched it, and it literally 


TAKEN ABACK! 


51 


rocked in its bed to the swaying of the great spanker-boom. 
Add to all this the midnight darkness in the air, which the 
flashes of lightning only served to deepen by the momentary 
and ghastly illumination they cast. 

Yet, if the ship was not to be dragged to destruction, it was 
imperative that she should be freed, and freed at once, from 
the ponderous encumbrance of the wreck that ground against 
her side. The captain had shouted himself hoarse, and was 
no longer to be heard. But now Holdsworth made himself 
audible in tones that rose above the gale like trumpet-blasts. 

“ We must clear the wreck or founder ! All hands out with 
your knives and cut away everything.” 

A comprehensive order that must be literally obeyed. 

“Carpenter ! ” he roared. 

“ Here, sir,” came a voice from the main-deck. 

Holdsworth sprang in the direction of the voice, shouted 
again, and the man was at his side. 

“ Quick ! Where’s your tool-chest ? Bear a hand, now ! ” 

The two men fought their way through the water that came 
drenching and flying over the forecastle to the boatswain’s 
berth, which the carpenter shared, and in a few moments re- 
turned, staggering aft with their arms full of tools, which they 
thrust into the hands of the men. Holdsworth seized an adze, 
the carpenter another ; and to it fell all hands, feeling for the 
ropes and then letting drive at them. 

The mere occupation heartened the men, who worked with 
a will, bursting into encouraging cheers from time to time, 
and calling to each other incessantly. The lightning was so 
far useful that it enabled them to obtain glimpses of the prog- 
ress they made. The starboard shrouds lay across the deck, 
from bulwark to bulwark, like bridges ; these were the first 
that were dealt with. They kept the wreck close along-side, 
and the strain upon them was enormous. While Holdsworth 
and the carpenter hacked, they repeatedly called to a few of 
the men whose zeal kept them working on the lee side, though 
their figures could not be seen, to stand clear, wisely guessing 
that, after a few of the shrouds had been severed, the whole 
would part like a rope-yarn ; and this happened. One final 


52 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


blow divided a shroud and left the weight upon a few others^ 
which were unequal to support it ; and as they flew a loud 
shriek rose— a man had been caught by the flying shrouds 
round the body and whirled overboard like dust. But in the 
darkness none could tell who the messmate was that had lost 
his life. . 

The parting of these shrouds released the wreck from the 
ship’s side, and it drifted some fathoms away. The horrible 
^ grinding sounds ceased ; but still the masts and yards, which 
the lightning disclosed seething in the water, black, ugly, and 
as dangerous as a lee-shore, were attached to the hull by a net- 
work of rope, all which must be severed. The knives of the 
men cut and hacked in all directions ; and first here and then 
there, and sometimes as if crashing in half a dozen places at 
once, the adze wielded by Holdsworth was to be heard. 

The last shroud was at length severed, the last rope parted ; 
the hull, drifting faster than the dead-weight of wreck, fell 
astern of the horrible encumbrance, and the next flash of 
lightning showed the water boiling round the black spars 
ahead. 

‘ ‘ Hurrah ! ” shouted Holdsworth ; but the men, wearied 
and faint, after their long and great struggle, and sickened 
by the shriek of their perishing comrade, whose cry still 
sounded in their ears, answered the encouraging shout faint- 
heartedly. 

The ocean was still a black and howling wilderness, and the 
vessel plunged and rolled, and trembled in the jumping seas, 
with her head right in the wind’s eye, and the water pouring 
over her in sheets of undulating fire. The water had stove in 
the cuddy front, and was washing in tons down into the steer- 
age. What they had now to do was to furl the cross- jack ; aft 
came the men and clewed the sail up ; on which the vessel fell 
broadside to the wind and rolled her bulwarks under water. 

To furl the cross- jack was a job full of peril ; but if the 
thing was to be done at all it was to be done by a coup de 
main, Holdsworth, crying to the hands fco follow him, sprang 
up the port mizzen-rigging. Half a dozen went up after him, 
the rest skulked in the darkness, and stood holding their 


TAKEN ABACK! 


53 


breath, expecting every moment the crash that should fling 
the men aloft into the sea. No glimpse of the brave fellows 
was to be obtained ; nothing but the flapping outline of the 
white sail could be seen ; the mast creaked harshly ; but from 
time to time the men’s voices could be heard even above the 
roar of the tempest, the groaning of the ship, and the rolling 
of spare casks, a sheep-pen which had become unlashed, and 
other things about the waist and quarter-deck ; and slowly the 
faint spaces of thundering canvas vanished in the darkness, 
and were securely stowed. 

Meanwhile, the hands about the poop had been sent to man 
the pumps. The carpenter had sounded -the well, and re- 
ported three feet of water in the hold. 

“ She must be tight, sir ! I am sure she is tight, sir ! She 
has shipped the water that’s in her through the mast-coat of 
the main-mast ! ” the skipper shouted to Holdsworth, who 
stood, panting from his exertions aloft, close against the 
mizzen-mast, that he might judge what chance there was of 
its standing. 

Meanwhile the wheel was hard a-starboard, and the gale 
was now upon the ship’s quarter, the huge waves breaking 
under her counter and sending her wildly yawing forward. 
Had there been daylight, they could have rigged up a jury 
foresail on the stump of the foremast, which would have served 
to keep her before the wind ; but nothing could be done in the 
overwhelming darkness except to keep the pumps at work. 

But she was riding more easily now, and shipping fewer 
seas ; the port bulwark just abaft the gangway had been 
crashed to a level with the deck by the fall of the mainmast, 
and offered a wide aperture for the escape of the water, so that 
the main-deck, where the hands worked the pumps, was prac- 
ticable. 

Furiously as it still blew, it was evident that the storm was 
abating ; there were rifts in the clouds through which, here 
and there, a pale star glimmered for an instant, and was then 
swallowed up. 

It was now five bells (half-past ten) ; the skipper ordered 
rum to be served out to the men, who were wet through to the 


54 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


skin, and fagged to death by their extraordinary exertions. 
The carpenter sounded the well again, and reported an increase 
of three inches in the depth of water. This was a terrible 
announcement, and proved beyond a doubt that the ship w^as 
leaking, though the crew were kept in ignorance of the report, 
that they might not be disheartened. 

At six bells the clouds had broken into huge black groups, 
with spaces of clear sky between, and the wind was lulling as 
rapidly as it had risen. 

The ship was still buoyant enough to rise easily over the 
seas ; but anything mor6 forlorn than her appearance, as it was 
disclosed by the dim light that fell from the rifts among the 
clouds, cannot be imagined. 

The foremast stood like a black and lightning-shattered tree ; 
the jib-boom hung in two pieces from the bowsprit ; where the 
main-mast had stood were some huge, jagged splinters; and 
aft towered the mizzen-mast, with the cross -jack swinging to 
the roll of the ship, the spanker with its peak halyards gone, 
and the whole picture of it completing the unutterable air of 
desolation presented by the storm shattered vessel. 

At eight bells the carpenter reported no increase of the 
water in the hold ; which cheering intimation the captain 
delivered to the men from the break of the poop, who received 
it with a faint cheer. 

The pumps had been relieved three times, and now the port 
watch was at them, making the water bubble on to the deck, 
where it was washed to and fro, and poured in streams through 
the scupper-holes. 

At one o’clock, Holdsworth, who had been on deck since a 
quarter to seven, went below to put on dry clothes ; and as he 
was leaving his cabin to return on deck he met Mrs. Tennent. 
Her face was very pale in the light of the swinging lamp, and 
she stood at her cabin door, by the handle of which she sup- 
ported herself. 

“Are we not in great danger, Mr. Holdsworth?” she 
whispered, in a tone of deep excitement. 

“ The worst is passed, I hope,” answered Holdsworth, cheer- 
fully. 


TAKEN ABACK! 


55 


‘‘ Do not be afraid of telling me the truth. I can be brave 
for my child’s sake. If real danger should come, Mr. Holds- 
worth, will you remember him ? Will you be near him in that 
moment?” 

‘‘ We won’t talk of danger yet, Mrs. Tennent. We have had 
an ugly bout of it ; but the daylight is coming, and then we 
shall be more comfortable.” 

“ Many times,” she exclaimed, “I thought we were sinking ! 
O God ! what a horrible night this has been ! I heard the 
water rushing past the cabin-door, and I tried to reach the 
deck, but was too faint to carry my child, and I could not 
leave him.” 

“Well, you see we are still afloat,” Holdsworth answered, 
cheerily. “ Depend upon it, we will do our best to save the 
ship. Take my advice, and lie down and get some sleep. This 
water here,” pointing to the cuddy-deck, “means nothing; a 
mop will put that to rights. The morning is coming, and you 
are sailing under a skipper who knows what he is about.” 

He waved his hand cordially, and left her. 

All through that long night the hands stuck to the pumps, 
but ttie water gained upon them inch by inch, and when the 
morning broke at last, the vessel was deep and heavy, rolling 
sluggishly, and leaking fast. 

The sun was a welcome sight to the poor, fagged seamen. 
Up he sprung, flushing the universe with a pink splendor, and 
dispersing the heavy clouds which hung in clusters about his 
rising-point. 

Up to that time there had been a fresh breeze blowing, the 
dregs, so to speak, of the storm that had dismantled the ship ; 
but this lulled as the sun rose, the sea smoothed out its turbu- 
ent waves, and a day filled with the promise of calm and beauty 
broke on a scene as desolate as any the heart can conceive. 

One of the watches was in the forecastle ; half the other 
watch on deck was at the pumps, the monotonous sounds of 
which had been echoing many hours, together with the gush- 
ing of water surging over the decks, and pouring in streams 
from the ship’s sides. 


56 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


The vessel was now no more than a log on the water ; not a 
shred of canvas, with the exception of the mutilated spanker, 
upon her, her port bulwarks crushed, her foremast a stump, 
her decks exhibiting a scene of wild disorder — loose spars that 
had been washed from forward encumbering the entrance of 
the cuddy, the cuddy front battered to pieces, spare casks piled 
tumultuously about the poop-ladders, and the long-boat, lashed 
between the galley and the foremast, and which had held some 
of the live stock, full of water and drowned sheep. On the 
port side the severed shrouds, which had supported the masts, 
trailed their black lengths in the sea ; and all about the star- 
board side were the fragments of ropes and stays hacked and 
torn to pieces ; while the port main-chains had received a 
wrench that had torn the bolts out of the ship’s side, and left 
the irons standing out. 

As yet none of the passengers had made their appearance. 
The captain had brought a chart from his cabin and unrolled 
it upon the skylight, and stood with his finger upon it, calcu- 
lating his whereabouts by yesterday’s reckoning, and waiting 
for Holdsworth to return from the hold, which he and the car- 
penter were exploring for the leak. 

The swell, which was heavy, surged against the ship’s slides, 
but her buoyancy was gone ; she hardly moved to the pres- 
sure. 

Presently Holdsworth came out of the hold, wet and ex- 
hausted, followed by the carpenter in worse plight. 

‘ ‘ Well ? ” exclaimed the captain, in a subdued but eager voice. 

‘‘I am afraid it is a hopeless case, sir. She’s leaking in a 
dozen different places.” 

“The worst leak is just amidships,” said the carpenter. 
“ It’s under the water in the hold. You can hear it bubbling, 
but there’s no getting at it.” 

‘ ‘ What soundings have you got ? ” 

“ Eleven feet, sir ! ” 

“Good God!” cried the skipper; “that’s an increase of a 
foot and a half since seven bells.” 

“We had better look to the boats, sir,” said Holdsworth, 
scanning the horizon. 


TAKEN ABACK! 


57 


Don’t talk of the boats yet, sir,” panted the skipper. 
*• Clap some backstays on to the foremast and tnrn to and rig 
Up the spare staysail.” 

‘‘Ay, ay, sir,” answered Holdsworth, and went forward to 
call all hands and make what sail they could upon the stump 
of the foremast, while the skipper walked passionately to and 
fro, perfectly conscious of the hopelessness of their situation, 
but determined to blind his eyes to it. 

The first among the passengers to come on deck w^as the 
general, who stood transfixed by the spectacle of the wreck. 
He and some of the others had attempted during the night to 
leave their berths and find out the reason of the uproar that 
was going on over their heads, but had been literally blown 
back again the moment they showed their noses above the 
hatchway ; and none of them, with the exception of Mrs. Ten- 
nent, having had an opportunity of speaking to either the cap- 
tain or Holdsworth, they were all in perfect ignorance that the 
vessel was actually a wreck. 

While the general stood gasping and staring up aloft in 
search of the majestic masts and sails that had reared their 
graceful heights when he was last on deck, he was joined by 
Mr. St. Aubyn and Mr. Holland, both of whom turned pale 
with amazement and fear. 

Then all three of them ran up to the captain. 

“ Oh, tell us what has happened ! What will become of us ? 
Are we sinking ? ” cried the actor. 

“Where are the masts gone? Is it possible that we can 
ever reach America in this condition? ” gasped Mr. Holland. 

“ Captain, we seem to be in a frightful mess ! Why, we are 
foundering, sir ! ” exclaimed the general, rolling his eyes over 
the sea and then fixing them upon the captain. 

‘ ‘ Gentlemen 1 gentlemen ! ” returned the skipper, extending 
his hands, “pray leave me ! You distract me by your ques- 
tions.” 

“ Are we in danger? ” implored Mr. St. Aubyn. 

“ Yes, sir ; can’t you see? ” answered the skipper, fiercely. 

“ Is it possible ?” stammered Mr. St. Aubyn, turning deadly 
pale. 


58 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘ ‘ It is possible ! ” cried the skipper, scornfully. ‘ ‘ But I 
hope you are not going to be afraid, sir. Look over the break 
of the poop, and you’ll see the men pumping for their lives. 
Danger is one thing, and drowning is another. I beg, sir, 
that you will control your fears. Panics are easily created, 
and you will remember, please, that we have women among 
us.” 

Saying which he walked some paces away. Mr. St. Aubyn 
burst into tears ; Mr. Holland gazed around him with an air 
of stupefaction ; the general followed the skipper. 

‘‘ Is our position really serious ? ” 

“ Yes, general ; the ship’s bottom is leaky fore and aft.” 

‘ ‘ What do you mean to do ? ” 

“Keep her afloat as long as I can. And now will you do 
me a service ? Go and clap that snivelling actor on the back 
and put some heart in him. One coward makes many, and 
this is no time for any man on board my ship who values his 
life at one farthing to lose his pluck.” 

By this time the hands forward had lashed a block on the 
stump of the foremast, and run up a spare staysail. Holds- 
worth then came aft to the poop. The captain called him to 
the skylight, and they hung together over the chart, calculat- 
ing their neighborhood, and defusing expedients in subdued 
tones. The men who were far enough forward to see them as 
they stood together on the poop eyed them curiously, and 
held muttering conversations together, some of them going to 
the ship’s side and looking over. 

It was felt by every man among them that the vessel was 
sinking ; and those who worked the pumps plied them lan- 
guidly, as though understanding the fruitlessness of their labor. 

Mrs. Tennent came on deck with her boy and stood near 
Holdsworth, asking no questions, but with an expression on 
her face that plainly showed her conscious of the danger and 
prepared for the worst. Soon afterwards came Mrs. Ashton, 
who shrieked out when she beheld the dismasted hull, and 
clung convulsively to her husband. Her maid clung to her, 
shivering, cowed, with big eyes staring everywhere like a mad- 
woman’s. 


TAKEN ABACK! 


59 


Then a dead silence fell upon the ship, disturbed only by 
the languid clanking of the pumps and the fall of the con- 
tinuous streams of water over the ship’s sides. 

It was now half* past eight o’clock. Not a breath of air rip- 
pled the surface of the sea, which rose and sunk to a deep and 
voluminous underswell. Some heavy clouds hung motionless 
in the blue sky, from one of which a shower of rain was falling 
about a mile off, arching a little brilliant rainbow upon the 
water. 

Presently Holdsworth advanced to the poop-rail and sang 
out to the carpenter to sound the well. This was done, and 
the report showed that the ship was making water at the rate 
of a foot an hour. 

On this announcement all heart went out of the captain like 
a flash, and left him silent and spiritless. 

He rallied, went to Holdsworth’s side and called out, “ Belay 
that pumping there ! Boatswain, send all hands aft to the 
quarter-deck.” 

The sound of the pumping ceased, the men came aft in 
groups and stood in a crowd. 

Some of them were bearded, some quite young ; their attire 
was various, but always picturesque : here a red shirt, there 
white ; here blue serge, there coarse canvas ; many with bare 
brown arms ringed with tattoo-marks ; some in sea-boots, some 
with naked feet. The bright sun gleamed upon their up- 
turned faces, pale for want of sleep, and with the intense 
weariness of their long and heavy labors. There was no want 
of respect suggested by any of them ; but, on the contrary, 
there was a rough and sympathetic deference in their manner 
and gaze as they fixed their eyes on their white-haired skipper 
and listened to his speech, which he delivered in a voice that 
now and then faltered : 

‘ ‘ My men, I had hoped to keej) our poor old hooker afloat 
by manning the pumps day and night, and head for home, 
which, with a breeze astern of us, we might have reached, even 
in the trim the gale last night has put us in. But I find that 
the water is gaining upon us faster than we can pump it out, and 
it’s not my intention to fag you with useless work. But in 


60 


JOHN H0LD8W0ETH, CHIEF MATE. 


this sea the hull is likely to float for some hours yet ; so we 
shall have plenty of time to get the boats out and do the best 
we can for our lives. You are most of you Englishmen, and 
those who are not are all brave fellows ; and no man can be 
better than that, let him hail from what port he may ; so I can 
depend upon you turning to and obeying orders quietly. 
There are thirty-four souls aboard of us and four boats ; 
there’s room for thirteen in the long-boat, and for seven apiece 
in the quarter-boats. I’ll take charge of the long-boat, your 
chief mate of the pinnace, and the second mate and boatswain 
will take the others. There’s no hurry, and there must be no 
confusion. Let a dozen hands man the pumps ; the rest go to 
breakfast, and then relieve the pumps. Then tumble aft, get 
the long-boat launched, and do the best we can for ourselves ; 
and may God preserve us ! Amen.” 

At the conclusion of this speech the men raised a cheer, the 
boatswain’s pipe shrilled, clang went the pump again, and the 
quarter-deck was deserted. 

The captain turned to the passengers : 

‘‘ Ladies and gentlemen, these are ugly straits for me to have 
brought you into, and I would that God in His mercy had ordain- 
ed it otherwise. I have been forty years at sea, and the like 
of this never has befallen me before. But that’s no matter. 
I’ll take care to do my duty by you to the last. We have got 
enough boats to accommodate us all comfortably ; the weather 
promises fair, and it’s odds if every one of us isn’t snug and 
safe on board some ship before to-night, for we’re right in the 
track of homeward-bound ships from the United States. Some 
of you will come with me, and some go along with my chief 
ofiicer, who has worked nobly for us all and who’ll work as 
nobly right away through for those who are with him while the 
life is in his body. Ladies, keep up your courage ; for a sink- 
ing ship is a small matter when you’ve got good boats, and are 
with men who know how to handle ’em. We’ll go below now 
and make as good a breakfast as we can ; we’ll then provision 
the boats and put off, as sure as our hearts cap make us that 
God’s eye, which is everywhere, will not lose sight of us.” 

There were some murmurs, and then a silence, which Mrs. 


TAKEN ABACK/ 


61 


Ashton broke by bursting into a passion of tears. When she 
was in some measure calmed, the general said, 

‘ ‘ Fellow-passengers, will you unite with me in a prayer to 
our merciful God for His protection ? 

The men took off their hats, but the captain exclaimed, 

“ General, there are hands for’ard who might like to join us. 
We should give them the chance.” 

Holdsworth went to the forecastle and presently returned, 
with the whole ship’s company following him. The hands at 
the pump ceased their work to gather round the capstan, and 
the passengers attended the skipper in a body to the quarter- 
deck. The old general stood in the midst of the crowd and 
knelt — an examj)le followed by the rest. 

There was something too sacred in the nature of the extem- 
poraneous prayer offered up by the general to make it proper 
for me to write it down here, but its effect was deeply impres- 
sive. Noble, beyond the power of words to describe, was the 
spectacle of the fine old Ameiican, bareheaded and kneeling, 
his trembling hands clasped, his kindly, honest face upturned 
to the skies, breathing forth in broken tones an earnest en- 
treaty that God, in His infinite mercy, would look down upon 
His servants now and grant them His all-powerful protection 
in this their hour of danger and suffering. Equally affecting 
was the spectacle of the men — some with hands clasped before 
their faces, some kneeling with reverently bowed heads, some 
gazing with earnest eyes upon the petitioner, and some even 
weeping — not unmanly tears ; those wdio wept were among the 
bravest. The widow knelt with her arms about her child’s 
neck, in an attitude both shielding and imploring. The hus- 
band and wife prayed hand-in-hand. 

Overhead shone the joyous sun ; the long and polished 
swell surged against the sluggish vessel’s side, and amid the 
tones of the old general and the solemn murmur of those who 
- followed his words you might hear the gurgling of the water 
in the hold, and feel the ship’s growing weight and helpless- 
ness in the heavy and weary rolls she gave to the movement of 
the sea. 


62 


JOHN HOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


CHAPTEK YII. 

IN THE BOATS. 

By twelve o’clock they had baled the long-boat out and got 
her over the ship’s side — a task of no small difficulty, since the 
main-mast being gone, they had no means of slinging her. 
The other boats were also lowered, each with a hand in her, 
and hung in a group about the port side of the ship, where the 
bulwarks were smashed. 

Each boat was properly supplied with mast, sail, and oars ; 
also with w^ater, biscuits, some rum in bottles, etc. They 
looked mere cockle-shells along-side the great hull, and it 
seemed difficult to realize that they would sustain among them 
the weight of the crowd of men who stood by ready to jump 
into them. 

The ship was settling fast. They had left off pumping her 
some time since, and she had now sunk a great hole under her 
port fore-chains to a level with the water, which gushed in like 
a cascade. 

Mrs. Ashton was the first to be handed out of the ship. She 
screamed and hung back, and threw her hands out to her hus- 
band ; but the men raising her firmly in their arms, offering 
her the while certain rough and hearty encouragements, passed 
her over the ship’s side to the sailors in the boats, who depos- 
ited her in the long-boat. The widow, at her own request, was 
assigned to Holdsworth’s boat. They handed her boy over 
first, and then she followed and seated herself in the stern- 
sheets, holding her child tightly. 

Then rose a cry of Bear a hand ! the ship will founder ! ” 

Mrs. Ashton’s maid was passed out quickly, and then the 
passengers ; the actor and the general getting into Holdsworth’s 
boat, the others into the long-boat. After this the seamen, 
feeling the imminence of the danger, tumbled rapidly into the 
boats ; and then Holdsworth quitted the ship, followed by the 
captain. 


IN THE BOATS. 


63 


‘‘Sliove off! ” shouted the boatswain, who commanded one 
of the quarter-boats. 

Out flashed the oars ; the boats parted and stood aloof from 
the hull at a distance of about three hundred feet. 

It is impossible to describe the mingled emotions of dismay, 
curiosity, and breathless suspense with which the men awaited 
the sinking of the hull. There was not a soul among them 
who felt privileged to depart until the vessel, so noble once, 
so desolate and broken now, had sunk to her long home in the 
dee^) Atlantic. Something absolutely of human pathos that 
appealed to the heart, as the distress of a living thing might, 
seemed mixed up in the aspect of unutterable desolation she 
presented, the more defined and keen because of the mocking 
joyousness of the sunlight that streamed over her, and the fair 
and azure surface of the sea on which she rested. Her figure- 
head, uninjured by the gale — as perfect a piece of workman- 
ship as ever graced a vessel’s bows — might, by no violent fan- 
tasy, have been deemed the sj)irit of the ship poising herself an 
instant ere she soared towards the sky. The two sails upon 
her flapped hollowly to her roll, and once there came from her 
silent deck a sound as of a bell being struck, which filled the lis- 
tening sailors with awe, and set them bending superstitious 
glances in search of the shadow that was tolling the sliip’s 
funeral knell. 

All on a sudden the hull lurched in the direction of the 
boats and exposed her sloping decks. ‘‘ She’s going now ! ” 
cried one of the men. This was true. Down sank her stern 
slowly, so slowly that many seconds passed ere her stern win- 
dows were on a level with the water. She righted, and her 
bows, high raised, pointed the shattered jib-boom aloft, as 
though, in her last agony, she raised her mangled limbs to 
heaven. She then sunk stern foremost, the deepest tragical 
dignity attending her descent : the silence unbroken, save by 
the sullen gurgling and bubbling of the water forcing itself 
through her decks. Her stern disapj^eared ; then her bows 
stood black on the water; they vanished, and the foremast, 
with the sail upon it, alone remained visible. Lower and 
lower, these crept, but still it was possible to trace the undu- 


64 : 


JOHN HOLD SW ORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


lating outline of the hull in the clear water. The sponge -like 
sail sucked up the water quicker than it sank, and arched a 
brown shadow upon its snow ; then the jagged top of the fore- 
mast only was to be seen ; this vanished, and the boats were 
left alone upon the mighty surface of the deep. 

A deep silence prevailed among the men while she was sink- 
ing ; and not for some moments after she had disappeared did 
the sj)ell upon them break, and a long and tremulous sigh 
escaped them. 

Then the captain’s voice in the long-boat was heard : “Mr. 
Holdsworth, our course is southeast. Every boat has a com- 
pass aboard of her. Now, my men, up with your masts ; we 
may get a breeze before sundown. And, meanwhile, out with 
your oars and make what way we can towards the old country !” 

The stout-hearted fellows answered with a cheer ; in all four 
boats they shipped the masts ; out went the oars, and the 
water bubbled round the stems. 

The men were right to cheer. God knows they needed what 
encouragement each other’s voice could give them. 

What pen shall describe the overwhelming sense of the im- 
mensity of the sea, now that its surface could be touched by 
the hand — its huge presence so close ! That sense alone was a 
weight that oppressed the hearts of the passengers like death. 
The height of a large ship from the edge of the water im- 
planted a habit of security ; but here they overhung the deep 
by an arm’s-length, and near enough to see their own pale 
faces mirrored in the green abyss from which they were sepa- 
rated by planks not much stouter than the sole of a boot. 

There were in Holdsworth’s boat, himself, Mrs. Tennent and 
her boy, Mr. St. Aubyn, the general, and two seamen — Win- 
yard and Johnson ; in all, sev-en souls. The long-boat, in the 
distance, looked crowded ; but then she v^as the largest of the 
boats. Astern of her rowed the boat commanded by the 
boatswain ; astern of Holdsworth’s, the boat commanded by 
Mr. Thompson, the second mate. 

There could be no purpose gained by rowing, for, let them 
ply the oars as hard as they would, they could not urge the 
heavy boats faster than three miles an hour. Holdsworth 


IN THE BOATS. 


65 


steered for the long-boat, and proposed to the captain that 
they should lay their oars in and wait for a breeze ; which was 
agreed to. The snn shone hot upon the glassy sea, and the 
boats hoisted their sails as a protection against the rays. And 
forever the men bent earnest and anxious glances round the 
bare and polished horizon for a sail. 

In Holdsworth’s boat the two seamen sat forward, talking- 
together in low voices ; Mr. St. Anbyn reclined with his back 
against the mast, glancing incessantly about him with quick, 
scared eyes, but quite silent, as though the novelty and horror 
of the situation was more than his mind could receive, and he 
was laboring to master it. The general’s face was placid, and 
even hopeful. The widow, holding her son at her side, kept 
her eyes bent downward, and often her lips moved. 

In the other boats the men talked, and often called to one 
another. Their voices sounded forced and unreal as the tones 
floated across the water, and in a strange manner heightened 
the unspeakable sense of solitude insxured by the boundless 
and tenantless deej). 

For some time the little boy appeared to share in the feel- 
ings which held all but the two sailors in Holdsworth’s boat 
silent ; but he xu-esently grew restless, and xmlling his mother 
by the skirt, asked her in a whis23er when the shij) was coming 
back to take them on board again. 

“ Another ship will come and take us soon, x)ray God, Louis,” 
answered the mother. 

“ But where is our ship, mamma ? ” 

Holdsworth overheard the question, and answered, in his 
hearty, cheery manner, 

‘‘ Look well about you, Louis, and by-and-by you will see a 
tiny sx^ot of white rise somewhere on that clear circle,” x^oint- 
ing round the horizon, “and that mil be our sliq^ coming to 
take us home.” 

“Oh, Mr. Holdsworth !” said the actor, in a faint voice, “if 
the wind rises, will not the w^ater get into our boat and sink 
it?” 

“ Not if I can help it, sir. I am waiting for the wind to rise. 
There is no chance of a rescue in this calm.” 

5 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


GO 


“ Though we should be grateful for this calm,” exclaimed 
the general, ‘ ‘ for it has enabled us all to leave the sinking ship 
in safety.” 

‘ ‘ I have lost my all in that ship — all the money I had in the 
world, and my clothes and things that were priceless to me,” 
moaned Mr. St. Aubyn. 

The widow raised her head and exclaimed, “ I too have lost 
much that was precious, and which no money could ever pur- 
chase. But so far God has watched over us and preserved our 
lives, and I can well spare all else — all else — if He vdll but 
leave me this treasure.” She wept as she bowed her head over 
her child. 

“Let us not murmur, Mr. St. Aubyn,” said the general, 
softly, “ but call upon Him who rebuked the winds and waves 
in the Sea of Galilee and calmed them. Have not we his 
disciples’ faith ? He is in our midst, watching over us, even 
as we sit now. This ocean is but the symbol of His majesty 
and might ; His servant, who will bear us safely on its bosom 
at its Lord’s command. Our Sa\dour sleeps not, neither will 
He forsake us. We forget Him when we yield to our fears.” 

Thank you for those words, sir,” said the man named John- 
son. “ God don’t forget those who are at sea any more than 
those who stop on shore. I have been worse off nor this, sir, 
lashed to a raft for forty-eight hours, and here I am to tell the 
story : begging your pardon, sir,” he added, touching his cap, 
and drawing back respectfully. 

By this time the boats had drifted some distance apart ; but 
the voices talking in them could still be heard with the utmost 
clearness, so exquisite a vehicle of sound is the smooth sur- 
face of water. 

It was one o’clock by Holdsworth’s watch when they beheld 
the horizon in the east darkening under what resembled the 
shadow of a cloud, and the voice of a man in the long-boat 
came across the water, crying, “A breeze at last, my boys ! ” 

It was a light breeze, and moved very slowly, but it filled 
the sails and sent the boats rippling gently through the water. 
As it came foul of the course the skipper meant to take, they 
lay as close to it as they could ; and eyes were strained in its 


IN THE BOATS, 


G7 


direction for the welcome sail, some of them whispered, it 
might bring along with it. Some wliite clouds came up, and 
as they soared about the horizon they so closely resembled the 
sails of ships that even Holdsworth’s experienced eye was de- 
ceived, and he gazed intently with a beating heart. 

The breeze freshened and the unequal sailing qualities of 
the boats manifested themselves. The long-boat drew ahead 
rapidly ; Holdsworth’s came next ; the other two fell astern. 
The wind, though in reality light, seemed tolerably strong, 
owing to the boats sailing close to it. Holdsworth’s boat lay 
over, which terrified SL Aubyn, and made him cling to the 
w^eather-gunwale. 

‘ ‘ You’re afeard rather early, sir, ” said one of the seamen — 
Winyard — sarcastically. 

“ The boat will turn over ! ” gasjDed the actor. 

Indeed his fear and despair were pitiable, and had not only 
dulled his eyes, but pinched and thinned his face as though 
he were fresh from a sick-bed. 

“Take a pull at this,” said Holdsworth, offering him some 
rum, and heartily commiserating the man’s sufferings. But 
St. Aubyn shook his head, and gazed with distended eyes at 
the water, shivering repeatedly, and sometimes talking to him- 
self. 

In order to let the hinder boats come up, the long-boat 
ahead from time to time stopped her way by putting her helm 
down, which example Holdsworth regularly followed ; and so 
they sailed throughout the whole afternoon, the breeze remain- 
ing steady and the sea smooth. 

The boat commanded by Holdsworth was about twenty-seven 
feet long, with seven feet or thereabouts of beam. There was 
a locker aft, which had been filled with small bags of bread, 
as they call biscuits at sea ; and forward were one small and 
two large kegs of water, and a tin pannildn to serve out the 
allowances with. At the bottom of the boat was a set of grat- 
ings, meant to keep the feet clear of any water that might be 
shipped, with a well convenient to get at, and half a cocoa-nut 
shell with a handle let into it to bale the boat with. The 
boat was new, stoutly built, and rigged with a lug-sail. A 


68 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


small compass had been put in her, and Holdsworth had lashed 
it carefully to a thwart. This was the only nautical instru- 
ment they had with them, and unless they could guess their 
whereabouts, it would not after a time be of much service. 

They had during the afternoon ascertained the quantity of 
provisions and water they carried, and discovered that there 
was enough to last for about ten days, providing each person 
had no more than two biscuits and a quarter full of the panni- 
kin of water a day. They had also three bottles of rum. The 
first allowance was served out by Holdsworth at five o’clock in 
the afternoon. A biscuit was handed to each person ; the 
little boy and the two seamen ate theii’s hungrily ; the general 
and Holdsworth nibbled only a portion of theirs ; but Mrs. 
Tennent and the actor ate nothing. The mother gave half her 
biscuit to the boy, and put the other half in her pocket for 
him to eat during the night. The actor refused his allowance 
altogether, and Holdsworth returned it to the bag he had 
taken it from. 

All the other boats remained in sight ; the long-boat ahead, 
and the other two at unequal distances astern. From time to 
time they encouraged each other by waving their hats ; and just 
before sunset some of the men in the long-boat struck uj) a 
hymn, the chorus of which stole faintly across the breeze, and 
mingled with the bubbling play of the water round the boat’s 
bows. 

The sun went down, branding the great ocean with an angry 
glare ; but nothing was visible upon either horizon but the 
deceptive tail-ends of clouds rising or dwindling. The breeze 
grew stronger as the darkness crept on, and they lowered the 
sail and took a cou23le of reefs in it while there was light 
enough abroad for them to see what they were about. They 
soon lost sight of the other boats, and Holdsworth finding the 
wind drawing ahead, put the boat around, judging that the 
others would do so likewise. 

Now, if at no other time, was the sense of the profound help- 
lessness of their position forced upon them. It is easy to write 
and read of an open boat far out in the Atlantic Ocean, and 
darkness around ; but none save those who have experienced 


IN THE BOATS, 


69 


the situation can realize all the horror of it. Waves which 
would scarcely more than ripple against the sides of a ship, 
make a dangerous sea for an open boat, and arch their seething 
heads over her with a threat in everyone of them of destruction. 

But the overpowering sensation is the near presence of the 
sea. Your feet are below its surface ; your head but an arm’s 
length above it. And you hear the quick splash of the boat’s 
bows as she jumps awkwardly into the hollows of the waves, 
wobbling as she goes forward with jerks and many stoppages, 
while now and again the sea chucks a handful of spray into 
your eyes as an earnest of the way it means to deal with you 
presently, when the wind has made it more angry. 

The stars came out and shone placidly among the clouds, 
which were rolling away to the northwest. There was a 
short, quick sea, which made the boat dip uncomfort- 
ably, and now and again whisked a sheet of sjDray over the 
seamen who sat forward. But there was more south than east 
in the breeze, which kept the temijerature of the night mild. 
The little boy fell asleep in his mother’s arms. Mr. St. Aubyn 
reclined against the mast, his arms folded, and his head droop- 
ing on his breast, starting at intervals as the spray fell like a 
shower of rain in the boat, but speedily relapsing again into 
the sluggish or semi-unconscious state into which he had fallen 
shortly after the sun had gone down. The general and Holds- 
worth sometimes conversed. Presently Winyard, turning his 
coat-collar over his ears, slipped under the thwart, where he 
coiled himself like a cat, and went to sleej). 

“I wish I could induce you to lie down, Mrs. Tennent,” said 
Holdsworth. “My coat will make you a capital pillow. I 
don’t want it, indeed I have slept on deck in my shirt-sleeves 
in colder nights than this. I sha’n’t put the boat about again 
to-night if this wind holds, and you will lie with your boy 
along-side of you as snugly as possible on this seat.” 

She thanked him, but said it would be useless for her to lie 
down ; she should not be able to sleep. 

“You have eaten nothing all day,” said the general ; “you 
must not allow your strength to fail you. Pray try to eat a 
little biscuit.” 


70 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


Holdsworth handed her a biscuit, and she broke a piece of 
it off and appeared to munch it ; but in the darkness they 
could not tell how little she ate. 

No sign was to be seen of the other boats, though once Holds- 
worth imagined he heard a voice hallooing a long way to wind- 
ward. The boat’s head was now pointing east-north-east ; but 
she lay close to the wind and made scarcely more than four knots 
an hour. The jump of the sea deadened her way materially ; but 
this jump decreased as the night wore on, for the waves grew 
longer, with steadier intermissions. At twelve o’clpck, Holds- 
worth, who was worn out by his long spell at the helm, called to 
Johnson to awaken Winyard. Up jumped the seaman from the 
bottom of the boat and came aft. Holdsworth gave him the 
yoke-lines, and, bidding Johnson lie down and get some rest, 
seated himself on the lee side of the mast and scanned the sea 
to right and left of him. The old general had fallen asleep 
right along the thwart on which he sat, his face buried in his 
arm. The boy slept soundly in his mother’s arms ; but 
whether she slumbered or not, Holdsworth could not tell. 
Once Mr. St. Aubyn started ujr as from a nightmare, muttered 
some broken sentences, and was silent again. 

“Keep her close,” said Holdsworth to Winyard, “and 
watch the seas.” 

“ You had best take some rest, sir. I can handle the boat 
while you’re down.” 

‘ ‘ No. I’ll wait until Johnson has hkd his nap.” 

So passed two hours. 

It was drawing near half-past two in the morning when Win- 
yard called, in a loud whisper. 

‘ ‘ Master, isn’t that a shij) to windward there ? ” 

No one in the boat heard him but Holdsworth. He jumped 
up and peered into the starlit gloom ahead, where sure enough, 
the outline of a dark shadow could be traced, though only by 
looking on one side of it. 

“Yes, that’s a ship!” he answered, hoarsely; “but she’s 
too far to windward to hear our shouts. Have we any lights 
aboard of us ? Quick ! ” 

He pulled the general, who leaped up, mbbing his eyes. 


IN THE BOATS. 


71 


Have yon any matches abont you ? ” 

“ No — what is it ? ” 

“ There’s a ship yonder ! I could souse my handkerchief in 
rum and set fire to it. Hi ! Mr. St. Aubyn ! feel if you have 
a match in your pockets.” But the actor answered with a stu- 
pefied stare, whereupon Holdsworth searched his pockets with- 
out avail. 

Johnson was awake, standing up in the bows, with his arms 
lifted. 

Ship ahoy ! ” roared Holdsworth.. One might have thought 
the voice deej) and powerful enough to have carried twice the 
distance of that gliding shadow. 

They w^aited breathlessly, but no sound was returned. 

“ Altogether, now ! ” shouted Holdsworth ; “ one, two, three 
— ship ahoy ! ” 

The united voices sounded like a shriek of death-agony ris- 
ing out of the ebony-colored deep ; but no response was 
brought back by the wind. 

“ O God ! ” raved Winyard ; they’d see us if we could only 
show a light ! ” 

‘‘ She is running before the wind,” cried Johnson ; “ she’s 
X)assing us ! ” 

“Put your helm up ! ” roared Holdsworth. ‘‘ We’ll follow 
her. She may hear us when we get her to leeward.” 

They let go the halyards, shook the reefs out of the sail, and 
set it again, slackening the sheet far out. The boat headed 
for the visionary shadow, which was fast fading in the univer- 
sal gloom, and the foam boiled under and along-side of her. 

“ Altogether again ! ” sung out Holdsworth. 

Once more went forth the loud, despairing chorus, to be 
followed by silence. They might as well have attempted to 
chase a cloud. Keen as the sailors’ eyes W'ere, they could no 
longer perceive the shadow. 

“ Never mind ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth, cheerily, “ there 
may be others near us ; we’ll keep a sharp lookout.” 

“ She may fall in with one of the other boats,” said John- 
son, “ and maybe she’ll cruise about to find us.” 

The chill of disappointment passed, and they grew hopeful. 


72 


JOHN HOLDS WOR TH, CHIEF MA TE. 

The mere fact of having sighted a ship imparted a new encour- 
agement. 

“We should be in the track of outward -bounders,” said 
Holdsworth. “Givens a hand here, Johnson, to take these 
reefs in. Bring her close again, Winyard. Pray God we shall 
be talking of this night on a ship’s deck by noon to-morrow.” 

The little boy, who . had been awakened by the hallooing 
of the men, shivered, crept closer to his mother’s side, and fell 
asleep again. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SECOND DAY. 

“Mr. Holdsworth,” said the General, “will you not let me 
watch wEile you get some sleep ? You have been up now for 
nearly three nights running, and I beg you to consider the 
preciousness of your life to us all.”, 

“I am much obliged to you, general. I’ll do as you ask 
me. Johnson, come aft and relieve Winyard here. Keep a 
sharp lookout, my lads, and wake me up if the breeze freshens.” 
He seated himself in the bottom of the boat, rested his head 
upon a thwart, and in a few moments was fast asleep. 

A hush fell upon the boat, which nothing broke but the 
quick, angry sousing of the bows as the boat fell with her 
short length into the trough of the sea. The widow had fallen 
asleep at last, and leaned against Johnson, who steered, while 
her boy slumbered with his head on her lap. The sailor sat 
motionless for fear of waking her, calling once in a whisper to 
Winyard to come aft and look at the little ’un, and tell him if 
he thought that God would let such innocence be drowned. 

“He’s the image of my little Bill,” answered Winyard, 
stooping his bearded face low that he might see the child’s 
features. “ I’m glad the poor lady’s sleeping. Keep steady, 
Dick, or you’ll wake her. She ain’t tasted a mossil of food all 
this blessed day, and it ’ud cut me to the heart to see the little 
’un left without a mother.” 


THE SECOND DAY, 


“ Ay, and so it would me, Harry. Maybe we’ll sight a ship 
to-morrow. I’ve got my old woman to keep ashore, and I 
guess, when rent-time comes, slie won’t know-what to do unless 
I get back.” 

‘ ‘ I wish I had some ’baccy with me. Ain’t got a bit in all 
my pockets. I wonder where t’other boats have got to ? ” 

The conversation, which had been carried on in hoarse 
whispers, was at this point interrupted by a movement of the 
little boy. Johnson raised his hand, and Winyard crept for- 
ward, where he sat like a bronze statue, watching the horizon. 

It was about four o’clock, as the seamen guessed, when the 
wind, which had been pretty steady from the southeast, lulled, 
and then veering northward came on to blow freshly. The 
men awakened Holdsworth, who went to the helm. Mrs. Ten- 
nent, who had been aroused by the withdrawal of the sailor’s 
shoulder, shivered with the cold and crouched down* to hug 
herself in her clothes. Indeed, the north wind was cold 
enough ; but Holdsworth, observing the woman’s condition, 
whipped off his coat without a word and buttoned it over her 
shoulders, silencing her protests by kindly laughter and en- 
couraging words. 

The change of wind x3roduced a cross-sea, which drenched 
the boat and made her movements horribly uncomfortable. 
The vund increased, bringing up large clouds, each of which 
was charged with a small rain-loaded squall of its own. The 
sea rose, and matters began to wear an ugly look. The men 
close reefed the sail, and Holdsworth, finding that the boat 
shix^ped water when on the wund, let her go free ; and away 
they scudded with a breeze growing in force every five min- 
utes astern of them. The utmost vigilance w^as now needful in 
steering the boat. The waves were quick and irritable, and 
broke in noisy surfaces of foam on either gunwale, and from 
time to time it seemed inevitable that their curling crests must 
arch themselves clean into the boat and swamp her. Holds- 
worth parried them with the rudder like a fencer with a foil. 
His eye was marvellously quick, the movements of his hands 
delicate and unerring. What the weaves were to that small 
open boat, the seas of the Pacific, under a westerly gale, are to 


74 JOHN nOLDSWOBTE, CHIEF MATE. 

a full-rigged ship. She sank into hollows half-mast deep 
where the air was stagnant, behind and before her black walls 
of illuminated water, the hinder ones of which, catching her 
under the stern, raised her with irresistible force to a height 
that turned her inmates giddy and sick ; and there, exposed to 
the wind, her sail blew out to cracking limits and hurled her 
madly forward, to sink into a new abysm, to experience another 
interval of breathless, deadly calm. 

“May God have mercy upon us ! ” exclaimed the general, in 
one of these awful intervals, folding his arms tightly, and fix- 
ing his eyes on a towering sea rearing astern of them like a hill. 

But Holdsworth’s voice echoed cheerily, “ She is a brave 
boat, general ; and it’s not my intention to let such ripples as 

these ” the rest of the sentence was drowned in the hooting 

of the wind, as one of these “ ripples ” swung the boat high in 
the full face of it, and the ^‘rijDple ” itself broke into an acre 
of foam under the boat’s bows. 

The two sailors sat like logs, ready for the worst, yet wuth 
a supreme confidence in Holdsworth’s skill as a steersman, 
which he had already illustrated in a hundred subtle ways, ap- 
preciable to none but them. St. Aubyn lay in the bottom of 
the boat, motionless. The general, holding on to the mast, 
was seated amidships, commending his soul, and the souls of 
his comrades, to God in inaudible prayers. The wfidow 
crouched with her boy, who still slept, in the stern-sheets ; 
and beside her towered the form of Holdsworth, a yoke-line in 
each hand, his body inclined forward, his shirt-sleeves rolled 
above his elbows, every nerve, every muscle in him strung to 
the tension of steel, his glittering eyes fixed upon the seas 
ahead, his whole attitude resembling a sculptured personation 
of audacity, skill, and the finest British courage. 

The dawn broke and found them swinging over an ugly sea, 
with the wind moderating. As the pallid light spread over 
the bleak surface of gray and moving waters, the weary, ship- 
wrecked men turned their eyes about in search of a vessel ; 
but the ocean was tenantless save by its own leaping seas, 
which played around in an eternal mockery of a fluctuating 
hilly horizon. 


THE SECOND DAY, 


75 


They were now sailing due south. Holdsworth steered the 
boat, and Winyard baled her out ; but, thanks to the wonder- 
ful skill with which the rudder was used, no single sea had 
been shipped, and what water there was consisted of the spray 
that had been blown into the boat off the crests of the waves 
when she was in their hollows. 

The sun rose, and diffused an exquisite pink through the 
ribbed clouds that barred the sky. His glorious light flashed 
jewels upon the water, and sent a message of hope among the 
inmates of the tiny boat striving amid the wild and throbbing 
wilderness of the deep. 

The general stood up, and arching his hand over his eyes, 
gazed slowly and intently around the whole circumference of 
the water-line. 

“We are alone,” he said; but instantly corrected himself. 
“No, I speak thoughtlessly. We have God with us. He has 
been with us all night. We thank Thee, O God,” he mur- 
mured, folding his hands, and reverently lifting his face to 
the sky, “ for Thy protection ; and 'we humbly implore Thee 
not to abandon us, but to be with us in our anguish and deso- 
lation, and in Thine own good time to snatch us from the 
perils that encompass us.” 

They all cried Amen. 

“ The wind’s lulling, master,” said Johnson to Holdsworth. 
“ We’ll have the sea smooth before long.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Holdsworth ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Tennent, starting 
up suddenly, and hurriedly removing his coat from her shoul- 
ders ; ‘ ‘ how cruelly selfish I have been to deprive you of this 
covering throughout the long, cold night.” 

“I’m better without it,” cried Holdsworth. “Even my 
shirt-sleeves were too heavy for me — you see I have had to 
turn them up. Winyard, rouse ux) Mr. St. Aubyn. We shall 
be none the worse, any of us, for a mouthful of biscuit.” 

He iDatted the little boy with his left hand, with his right 
kept the boat’s head straight as a line. 

“Come, sir, wake up, x>lease. Biscuit’s going to be served 
out,” said Winyard, jpulling the actor somewhat unceremon- 
iously by the. arm. 


76 JOHN IIOLDSW ORTH, CHIEF HATH. 

Both seamen thought him a white-livered gentleman, and de- 
spised him accordingly. 

The poor man lay athwart the boat, his legs doubled up, 
and his arms hiding his face. He shook his head without 
raising it when Winyard pulled him, but did not speak. The 
man, thinking him numbed or cramped, raised him up ; where- 
upon St. Aubyn struggled to his feet, and looked about him 
with a fixed smile. That smile made his face terrible to be- 
hold, for he was deadly white, and a wild fire, with no more 
merriment in it than a madman’s laugh, shone in his eyes, 
which looked unnaturally large, and his lips were blue and 
thin, and laid his teeth almost bare. 

“ You fellows may shing your shoulders, and some of you 
may hiss,” he muttered, never remitting his fixed smile, but 
speaking through his teeth, and bringing his clinched fist upon 
his knee, “but you sha’n’t starve me, because you don’t un- 
derstand what tiTie acting means. Do you think I can’t tell 
what this hollowness, this sinking is, here ? ” laying his hand 
upon his stomach and sending his lustrous eyes travelling over 
the others, who watched him in silence. “You are starving 
me, you fiends, and driving a poor actor to death. But do you 
think you will force him into the work-house ? No, by God ! 
He has spirit, and will seek a new home, a new country, a new 
wwld, rather! Who tells me I cannot act? Try me in farce, 
in comedy, in tragedy! See, now — shall I play you Tony 
Lumpkin ? ” He began to sing : 

“ ‘ Then, come, put the jorum about, 

And let us be merry and clever ! 

Our hearts and our liquor are stout. 

Here’s the three Jolly Pigeons forever.’ 

“Or shall I give you Lear?” he stretched out his hands to 
the sea : 

“ ‘ Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow ! 

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout 

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks ! 

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires. 

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, 

Singe my white head ! ’ 


THE SECOND DAY. 


77 


Is not that flue, gentlemen ? Now turn about with more shrugs, 
and drive me mad with your cant. Ha ! ha ! ha ! ” 

His laughter was shocking. The seamen shrank away from 
him. 

“ He has gone mad with terror ! ” whispered the general. 

The widow hid her face in her hands. 

“ Johnson,” said Holdsworth, ‘‘mix some rum-and- water in 
that pannikin and give it to him with a biscuit.” 

The actor took both, staring first at the pannikin, then at 
the biscuit. 

“Gentlemen ! ” he cried, with his wild smile, “ I am Timon of 

Athens, sour, crusty, and ” he stoi^ped with a laugh. ‘ ‘ But 

before his mind went, he pledged his friends, standing, thus : 
‘ Here’s to you — dogs ! ’ ” He flung the contents of the pan- 
nikin at Holdsworth, and dashed the vessel into the boat ; 
“ and with this I feed the winds ! ” and he hurled the biscuit 
into the sea. 

“ Seize him ! ” shrieked Holdsworth, noticing a quick move- 
ment on the actor’s part. The men sprang forward, but too 
late to catch him. He leaped on to the thwart and bounded 
overboard, with a peal of laughter, ere you could have cried 
‘ ‘ Hold ! ” and vanished under the crest of a wave that was 
breaking at the moment under the boat. 

“ See ! ” cried the general ; “he has come to the surface. 
There is his head. He may be saved yet ! ” 

But the boat was foaming through the water at six or seven 
knots an hour ; the sea was still so lively that to broach her to 
would have been to capsize her in an instant. 

“ We cannot save him ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth, bitterly, 
grasping the situation at once ; and kept the boat’s head dog- 
gedly away. 

Those who watched the drowning man saw him, a mere dot 
on the tumbling waters, heaved high on the summit of a wave, 
with both his arms upraised ; then down he sank into the 
trough of the sea, the next wave boiled over him, and they 
beheld him no more. 

The general covered his face with his hands and wept aloud. 
The widow was so sick and faint with the horror of the scene 


78 


JOim HOLDS WORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


that she leaned back, white and motionless, with her eyes 
closed. J ohnson came aft and jmt some rum to her lips, which 
revived her, and then she began to weep silently, casting shud- 
dering backward glances at the sea, and hugging her boy to 
her passionately. She had become, during the night, the very 
ghost of her former self ; her complexion was ashen, her eyes 
hollow, her countenance gaunt with a hard, weird look of old 
age upon it. Holdsworth noticed that her dress was wet wuth 
salt water, and clung to her legs ; but this it was imi)ossible to 
remedy. Infinite pity smote him as he gazed from her to her 
child, and he handed her a biscuit, entreating her to eat it. 
The boy ate his allow^ance quickly ; but even out of him some- 
thing of the youthfulness and freshness of his infancy had 
passed ; a perception of their danger and misery appeared to 
have visited him, and he clung to his mother’s side, holding 
her dress with one hand while he ate the biscuit, and gazing 
about him with puzzled eye, in which was mixed up a strong 
ex^Dression of terror. 

Thedmpression produced by the sudden and tragical death 
of the actor was more lasting on the widow and the general 
than on the sailors, who were too sensible of their own peril to 
find more than a passing occasion of horror in the scene they 
had witnessed. They and Holdsworth ate a biscuit apiece and 
drank their allowance of water mixed with rum ; but the gen- 
eral turned, with an expression of loathing in his face, from the 
food, and Mrs. Tennent could not be induced to eat more than 
a few mouthfuls. Both di-ank of the water. 

The waves were still lively enough to demand the utmost 
care in the steering of the boat ; but Winyard had proved 
himself a smart steersman, and Holdsworth, whose hands were 
cramped and blue with long grasping of the yoke-lines, gladly 
surrendered his place to the sailor. 

“ Strange,” muttered the general, “ that we sight no ships !” 

‘ ‘ Our course is east, ” said Holdsworth. ‘ ‘ If the wind 
would haul round a few^ points to the west, I’d out reefs and 
bear up. ” 

The breeze held until twelve o’clock, when it slackened. 
The sea having grown smoother during the morning, Holds- 


THE THIRD DAT, 


79 


worth hauled the sheet of the sail aft, and steered southeast 
by the compass, which w^as as close to the sea as he deemed it 
advisable to sail the boat. The sun now shone hot overhead, 
which greatly comforted Mrs. Tennent, and revived the spirits 
of her boy, who pulled a piece of string from his pocket, to 
which he fastened a crooked pin, and began to fish. As the 
afternoon advanced the wind gradually died away, and a thin 
haze settled upon the southern horizon, portending both heat 
and calm. The water’s surface turned to an aspect of polished 
steel ; the boat rose and sank to the swell, easily and with a 
soothing motion, and the sail flapped idly against the mast. 

During the afternoon some porpoises came to the surface of 
the water about a stone’s-throw from the boat, rolling their 
gleaming black bodies in a southerly direction. 

‘ ‘ They always make for the quarter the "wind’s coming 
from,” said Winyard. 

“I am afraid we shall have no wind to-night,” answered 
Holdsworth ; “the w^eather looks too settled.” 

They watched the fish turning their solemn somersaults 
until they were out of sight, and then, as though to meet hope 
half-way, Holdsworth swarmed up the boat’s mast and swept 
the horizon with piercing eyes, but saw nothing but the bound- 
less water-line paling away against the sky. 

The sun went down in glorious majesty, burnishing the 
deep, and dazzling the eye with a splendor of small, radiant 
clouds, pierced with threads of glory, and momentarily chang- 
ing their brilliant hues until the orb was under the sea, when 
they turned to a bright red color. The twilight followed fast, 
the stars came out, and the darkness of night fell upon the 
lonely deep. 


CHAPTEK IX. 

THE THIKD DAY. 

As no object could be served by keeping the sail hoisted, 
they hauled it down and spread a portion of it over the widow 
and her child. Holdsworth kept watch till ten, and then 


80 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


awakened Winyard, who watched till twelve ; afterwards John- 
son watched ; and so the three men took turn and turn about, 
all through the long and breathless night, until daybreak, 
which found Winyard awake in the stern-sheets, watching the 
pale dawn breaking in the east. 

Its approach at first was imperceptible. A faint gray 
mingled in the prevailing darkness, and gradually grew more 
defined ; the stars languished, and those in the extreme east 
hid themselves. Then a clearer light broke stealthily about 
the eastern horizon ; the sea caught the glimmering dawn, and 
mirrored a pale and sickly illumination, infinitely vague, as 
■would be the reflection in a looking-glass of a faint light. But 
soon the lustre broadened, and streaks of horizontal silver 
floated above the deep, and stood in layers of crystalline clear- 
ness, awaiting a more ardent transformation. Then a delicate 
pink flushed a wide space in the eastern sky, which spread and 
spread, until the farthermost heavens shook off the heavy 
curtains of the night and melted into a pale and visionary blue. 
Anon, upon the eastern water-line, stood a mere speck of 
white and exceedingly brilliant light — a pure silver point of 
glory — which, as the eye watched it, increased in size, flinging 
flake upon flake of glittering icy splendor upon the water, 
until, as with a sudden bound, it soared in sun-like shape and 
flooded the heavens and the sea with strong, rejoicing light. 

It awoke Holdsworth, who started up and stared around 
him. 

“Look, sir ! ” said Winyard, in a whisper that sounded fierce 
with excitement, pointing towards the southeast, where, upon 
the remote horizon, stood a white speck clearly defined by the 
sunshine. 

Holdsworth hollowed his hands tube-wise, gazed intently for 
some moments, and then cried, ‘ ‘ A sail ! ” 

“ Becalmed, master, as we are ! ” shouted Winyard ; whereat 
the sleepers in the boat stirred and opened their eyes. 

“ Out oars, my men ! ” sang out Holdsworth. “ A sail, 
general ! Do you see her ? Look, Mrs. Tennent ; follow the 
direction of my finger ! She is becalmed ! She cannot escape 
us ! Hurrah, my lads ! ” 


THE THIRD DAY. 


81 


In less time than it takes me to write it, both seamen were 
bending to the oars like madmen, making the water break in 
clear lines of ripple against the boat’s bows, which headed 
directly for the distant sail. Language is powerless to de- 
scribe the excitement of the poor creatures. Mrs. Tennent 
shed tears. The general, upon wdiose constitution, debilitated 
by old age, their perilous situation and the mental sufferings 
which accompanied it wnre beginning seriously to tell, stood 
clutching the mast, his eyes riveted upon the white speck, and 
his attenuated face flushed with eagerness and hope. The 
men, stretching to the long oars, looked from time to time 
over their shoulders to remark the inogress they were making, 
and encouraged each other with cheerful cries. 

They had but two oars, and the boat was heavy and moved 
reluctantly to the pressure of the blades ; moreover, the men 
were weakened by exposure and want of nourishing food. 
Still, they urged the boat through the water at pretty nearly 
three miles an hour ; and Holdsworth repeatedly encouraged 
them by representing that every stroke of the oars brought the 
boat nearer within the range of the vision of those on board 
the vessel, and increased the likelihood, under God’s j^rovi- 
dence, of their rescue. 

When the vessel wns first sighted, she could not have been 
less than ten miles distant ; this was made manifest by the 
circumstance of their continuing to row a full hour before they 
had exposed her large sails, and even then her hull was invis- 
ible. The ocean, meanwhile, had remained perfectly polished, 
wuthout a shadow anywdiere upon its vast bosom to indicate the 
passage of wind. 

The seamen presently showing symptoms of distress, Holds- 
worth took an oar, and bade Winyard, whom he replaced, to 
drink some rum and hand a draught to Johnson. The general 
begged to take Johnson’s place for a time while the man rested 
himself ; but the poor old gentleman, after rowing a few strokes, 
found himself utterly unequal to the weight of the oar, and he 
returned to his seat covered wuth perspiration, and breathing 
with difficulty and pain. 

It was seven o’clock by Holdsworth’s watch before the hull 

6 


82 


JOim HOLDSWOnTH, CHIEF MATE, 


of the vessel grew discernible ; and then Johnson, whose sight 
was very keen, pronounced her to be a large three-masted brig- 
antine. She had all her sails set, but she was still so remote 
as scarcely to be distinguished by an inexperienced eye from a 
cloud. 

Winyard, who steered, asked Mrs. Tennent for her black 
shawl, with w^hich he climbed up the mast, and made it fast, 
flag-wise. The motion of the boat hardly created draught 
enough to unfurl it, but, drooping as it did, it could scarcely 
fail to serve as a signal. The calm, wdiich would have dis- 
heartened them under other circumstances, as suspending all 
prospect of a rescue while it lasted, was now deeply welcome 
to them as a guarantee of their speedy release from the horrors 
of their situation. As the vessel grew in dimensions under the 
desperate exertions of the rowers, Mrs. Tennent became hys- 
terical, laughed and wej^t at the same moment, and hugged 
her boy passionately to her. The old general stood uj), wav- 
ing his handkerchief, and tallying to himself, even wildly at 
times. 

Holdsworth was now steering, and he bent eager glances in 
search of some signal, some flag whose spot of color would 
surely be visible even at that distance, to tell them they were 
seen. 

Suddenly he cried out, 

“Johnson — Winyard ! Look ! tell me what you can see.’* 

The men rested on their oars simultaneously, and turned 
their heads towards the vessel. A silence ensued, lasting some 
moments. Then Johnson exclaimed, 

“ There’s smoke coming out of her. Don’t you see it, like a 
blue line between her fore and main masts ? ” 

“ Maybe they’re boiling the pitch-kettle abaft the galley, as 
we used aboard the Mary Ann,^' said Winyard, wiping his fore- 
head with his bare arm ; “ let’s make for her, boys.” 

And he fell to his oar again. 

The water rippled round the boat’s sides once more, and the 
shawl at the mast-head fluttered. 

Five minutes passed ; and then Holdsworth, whose eyes 
never wandered from the vessel, saw something black pass up 


TEE TETRI) BAY. 


83 


her sails, rise over her masts and there hang. Another fol- 
lowed ; another yet ; volumes now, and each volume denser, 
blacker than its predecessor. 

“ She’s on fire ! ” he shouted ; at which the men tilted up 
their oars and stood up. 

Quicker and quicker the black volumes, like balls growing 
in size as they mounted, were vomited up, and resembled an 
endless series of balloons rising from the deck ; they met when 
they reached a short height above the masts, mingled and 
formed into a livid line which gi’adually stretched north and 
south, but very slowly. The spectators in the boat were para- 
lyzed ; but their emotions were too various and conflicting to 
permit the deeper, deadlier ones of disappointment and despair 
to make themselves felt as yet. 

Holdsworth broke a long silence by exclaiming, ‘‘ Can you 
see them putting off? ” 

“ No — I see nothing. I reckon she’s abandoned hours ago,” 
answered Winyard. 

The general sank u]3on his knees with a groan, clutching 
the gunwale and staring at the burning vessel over his knuck- 
les. There was no sign of a boat anywhere — no sign of living 
creatures being on board the doomed craft. The smoke, which 
appeared to have been j)ent up in the hold, had now escaped 
on a sudden, and thick and yet thicker it mounted, making 
an ugly stain upon the pure morning sky, and hanging sombre 
and menacing over the smouldering vessel, like a thunder cloud. 
Soon a short tongue of flame protruded ; then came another 
and a longer one, which seemed to whiz with a yellow radiance 
up the rigging and bury itself in the smoke. Then the fire 
burst out in all directions ; in the time it would take you to 
count ten the vessel was a mass of flame, keen, brilliant, coil- 
ing, with streams of thin blue smoke sailing out of each 
yellow ray, mingled with particles of burning matter that 
winked among the heavy clouds like fire-flies in a dark 
evening. She was four or five miles off; a mere toy on 
the surface of the sea ; and yet those wdio watched her 
from the boat could distinctly hear the crackling of the fire 
and the seething of her flaming spars as they fell into the 


84 


JOHN H0LD8W0BTH, CHIEF MATE. 


water. Anon the fires flickered, and np drove new volumes of 
smoke, which i)aled and thinned as the rekindled flames burst 
forth again and darted their spear-shaped fangs into the smoke- 
hidden sky. 

For above an hour this terrible and magnificent spectacle 
lasted, during which not a word escaped the lips of the inmates 
of the boat. Their minds seemed incapable of understanding 
the extinction of the hope that had sustained them since sun- 
rise by a catastrophe so unexpected, by a horror which united 
the extreme of sublimity with the extreme of misfortune, and 
which appeared scarcely more than a vision — so unforeseen, so 
incredible, so illusive, so ghastly, so terrific w^as it. 

By this time the whole of the upj)er masts were gone, adding 
fuel to the interior furnace of the hull, and the three lower 
masts were burning stumps. Suddenly the blazing mass 
appeared to rise in the air ; the fires went out as if by magic, 
and an opaque cloud, burnished a livid blue by the sunshine, 
floated on the water. Not for many moments after the flames 
had vanished came a concussion that rent the air, loud and 
violent as a thunder-clap among mountains. The cloud lifted, 
and where the vessel had been the sea was a smooth outline, 
reflecting only the dark shadow of the slowly mounting smoke, 
and dotted here and there with black remnants of the wreck. 

“Mr. Holdsworth,” said the general, in a faint voice, sink- 
ing backward against a thwart., “ I am dying.’’ 

His hands were pressed to his heart; he was breathing 
quickly and convulsively, and his face was bloodless. His 
exclamation broke the spell that held the others gazing in the 
direction of the smoke. They turned quickly, and Holds- 
worth jumped over to the old man and supj)orted his head on 
his knee. 

“No, no, general ; don’t say that. This is a bitter disap- 
pointment, but we believe in God’s goodness. He cannot 
mean that we should perish. Johnson, pour some rum into 
the pannikin. Mrs. Tennent, dip your handkerchief into the 
sea and kindly pass it here.” 

They put the spirit to the old man’s lip and he drank a little, 
but gasped for breath when he had swallowed it, and clinched 


THE THIRD DAY. 


85 


his hands. They spread the wet handkerchief over his fore- 
head and loosened his cravat. 

“ I — I know not what this giddiness may mean,” the general 
stammered, while the lustre faded out of his eyes. “If it is 
death — I am ready to meet it. God is merciful and good. Hi ^ 
Son is my Bedeemer — He will take me to Himself — How faint ! 
how faint ! But I have eaten nothing ” 

He ceased, with a sudden gasp. 

“You will feel better presently,” said Holdsworth, while 
Mrs. Tennent took the old man’s hand and fanned his face. 
“ The shock of the burning ship has been too great for you. 
But you will live to recall this time. Y'ou have as manly a 
heart as ever God blessed His creatures with. Don’t let it fail 
you now. ” 

“I have — I have striven to do my duty,” murmured the old 
man, so faintly that his words wore scarcely audible “I have 
served my country — she is a great emigre — a great empire — 
and my heart is with old England, too ; ” forcing a smile. “ We 
should know each other better, sir, and our prejudices would 
leave us, for — for — See ! yonder is Charleston ! ” he suddenly 
exclaimed, his eyes kindling, and drawing his hand from Mrs. 
Tennent’s, to i^oint with it into the infinite horizon. Do you 
see that house on the left, there, with the green facing it ? 
I was born there, sir. Observe the barberry-bushes, with the 
red fruit on them — just there I fought J. Q. Adams when we 
were boys — he’s a senator now, and they tell me a good speaker. 
Oh, how the time goes!” ho sighed, weaiily. “But there’s 
my wife — she is holding the little one by the hand, and nod- 
ding to me to attend her — A moment, Sarah, a moment! 
Gentlemen, farewell. I beg your kind word in my favor among 
your countrymen, whom I honor. I am a plain American gen- 
tleman — a general, gentlemen — but tell them that my sword 
was never drawn from its scabbard for any cause but a good 
one, and — Ah, farewell ! You see, gentlemen, my wife awaits 
me, and the little one beckons.” 

He made a gesture as though he would bow ; his venerable 
and honorable head sank upon his bosom ; then he started, 
looked about him with a glazing eye, and, smiling sweetly, 


S<> JOHN H0LD8W0BTH, GHIEF MATE. 

whispered, “ Sarah, I am coming,” lay back and spoke no 
more. 

When, after long watching him, they knew that he was 
dead, they covered him over with the sail, meaning to commit 
him to the sea when the widow should be asleep. 

Holdsworth was so greatly overcome that for many minutes 
he could not raise his head nor speak. The widow, with her 
eyes fixed on the water, sat motionless, a fixed image of de- 
spair. Her boy crept about the bottom of the boat at her 
feet with somewhat weakly movements, though his body had 
not yet suffered enough to kill the infancy in his mind. The 
sailors, made selfish by the bitter disappointment of the morn- 
ing, talked of their chances of rescue, and discussed the sub- 
ject of the burning ship. Johnson probably solved the mys- 
tery of the deserted vessel when he suggested that during the 
night the hands had found the cargo on fire — and he judged 
by the blaze she made, and the smoke, and the long time she 
was smoulde]-ing, that she was freighted with cotton or jute — 
and had battened down the hatches ; but, not having the 
means of getting the fire under, they struck and took to the 
boats, obliging the skipper to go along with them, and left 
the vessel to her fate. Just such another case happened to a 
messmate of his in the bay of Biscay. The crew left their 
ship smouldering under battened hatches. But she was 
boarded by a Frenchman, who smothered the fire and towed 
her into Bordeaux. 

Where was the brigantine’s crew now?” Winyard won- 
dered. 

“ I wish we could fall in with them, if only for company’s 
sake,” replied Johnson. 

But of that there was very little chance. 

All the afternoon the calm lasted, with light mists hanging 
in wreaths upon the horizon. But about the hour of sunset 
the smoke that had risen from the burning ship, and which 
had not drifted more than a couple of miles to the southward 
throughout the day, came sailing slowly towards the boat and 
passed high overhead, thinning its bulk as it travelled in an 
easterly direction. A light breeze heralded it ; they hoisted 


THE FOURTH DAY. 


87 


the sail, put the boat’s head round, and stood east-south- 
east. 

The night fell, but the light breeze held steady. When they 
thought Mrs. Tennent was asleep they raised the body of the 
general in their arms from the bottom of the boat. The night 
was lustrous with yellow stars, which diffused sufficient light 
to enable them to see the old man’s face. The eyes were 
closed, and, though the under jaw was fallen, there yet lin- 
gered an expression both of firmness and sweetness about the 
mouth. The draught under the sail moved his white hairs. 

“ Mates,” said Holdsworth, in a whisper, ‘‘ we pray that God 
has taken this noble gentleman’s soul to Himself, and that, 
though his body be dispersed in the sea, it will rise again at 
the Day of Judgment in the shape we now behold it, to become 
a partaker of life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

The two sailors answered Amen. 

Ail three of them then tenderly handed the body over the 
boat’s side, and let it gently slip into the water. The white 
hair glimmered for a brief moment on the dark surface, and 
then the body sank or was swallowed up in the gloom ; and 
the boat rippled onward, cutting the star flakes in the sea with 
her stem, and leaving them glittering in silver fragments in 
her wake. 


CHAPTEE X. 

THE FOUETH DAY. 

A fourth day broke, and found the boat almost becalmed 
again. The intense tedium of their captivity cannot be ex- 
IDressed by words. The eternal iteration of the water-line be- 
came a torment and a pang, and forced them to look into the 
boat or upon one another for relief of the strained and weary 
eye. Their limbs were cramped for want of space to stretch 
themselves. Holdsworth’s cheeks were sunk, and the hollows 
of his eyes dark ; and a black beard and mustache, sprouting 
upon his cliin and lip, gave him a gaunt and grizzly look. The 


88 


JOHN n0LD8W0RTIJ CHIEF HATE. 


men sat with rounded backs, and hopeless eves fixed down- 
ward, and sinewy hands clasped upon their knees. 

But the effect of the sufferings, bodily and mental, they 
were enduring, was most visible in the widow, whose face was 
scarcely recognizable from the wasted, aged, pallid, and heart- 
broken aspect that it iDresented. 

When the little boy awoke he began to cry and complain of 
pains in his limbs and back. His mother seemed too weak to 
support or even soothe him with speech. Holdsworth took him 
upon his knee and talked to him cheerfully, that he might in- 
spirit the others as well as himself. 

‘‘ Louis, you are a little man ; you must not cry, because it 
grieves your poor mamma, who cannot bear to see your tears. 
Your back aches because your bed has been a hard one ; but 
you won’t have that uncomfortable bed long. Don’t you re- 
member what the poor old general said : that God, whose eye 
is everywhere, sees us, and will pity us, and send a ship to our 
rescue if w^e will but have patience, and not murmur against 
Him. Many vessels have been wrecked as well as the Meteor, 
and their crews taken to the boats, and rescued by passing ships, 
after they had suffered more anguish and misery than w^e can 
dream of. The fortune that befell them may befall us. We 
must put our whole trust in God, and watch the horizon nar- 
rowly. This is but our fourth day, and the very breeze that is 
now blowing may be gradually bearing us towards a ship. So 
no more tears, my man. Here is a biscuit for you. Give this 
one to your mamma. Here, Johnson — Winyard.” 

He handed the men a biscuit apiece, and bade Johnson 
serve out the w^ater. 

There were three kegs in the boat, as stated elsewhere. 
They had calculated that, by allowing each person half a j^an- 
nikin of water a day, their stock would last them ten days. 
But now there were two mouths less, and they might hope to 
make the water serve them for as long as thirteen days. It 
would seem, however, that, in spite of the injunctions of Cap- 
tain Steel, the boats had been provisioned hurriedly. Of bis- 
cuit Holdsworth had an abundance ; but nothing but negligence 
or haste could account for the absence of other i^rovisions, 


THE FOURTH DAY, 


89 


such as rice, flour, beef and pork, dried pease, and such fare ; 
unless, indeed, ifc was considered that none of these things 
would be eatable unless cooked. Though Holdsworth’s boat 
might not have fared the worst, it was manifest that the quan- 
tity of water that had been put into her was out of proportion 
with the biscuit that filled the locker. They had used the 
w^ater in one of the larger kegs first, and Johnson, in measuring 
out the allowance, found that scarcely enough remained to fill 
the pannikin by a quarter. Holdsworth told him to pull the 
bung out of one of the other kegs, and when the little boy, 
who was first served, had emptied the pannikin, the next 
draught was handed to the widow. She raised it to her lips 
eagerly, her mouth being feverish, }:)ut had scarcely sipped 
it when she put it down, exclaiming that the water was 
salt. 

“Impossible!” cried Holdsworth, quickly, and tasted the 
water. 

The widow was right. The water was not indeed salt, but so 
brackish as to be quite unfit to drink. 

He spat it out at once, his instincts cautioning him that he 
would increase his thirst by swallowing it, and looked blankly 
at the men. 

“What I is it salt ? ” exclaimed Winyard, furiously. 

“Try the other keg,” said Holdsworth, throwing the con- 
tents of the pannikin away. 

J ohnson drew" some of the w"ater and tasted it, but also Si)at 
it out, as Holdsw"orth had done. 

‘ ‘ Is that salt too ? ” shrieked Holdsw"orth. 

“Try it!” answ"ered Jolinson, grimly, coming aft wntli the 
pannikin. 

That, too, like the other, was brackish and unfit to be 
drunk. 

“ Great God ! ” exclaimed Holdsw-orth, clasping his hands 
convulsively ; “ how" could this have happened ? ” 

“ It was the steward as filled these kegs,” said Winyard. 
“ I saw" him myself pumping out o’ the starboard water-cask, 
which the sea w"as wnshing over w"hen the masts w"ent, and 
draining the salt-w"ater in.” He added, fiercely, “I’ll lay ho 


90 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


took care to fill the kegs of the boat he belonged to with the 
right kind ! ” 

“Hand that pannikin here,” said Holdsworth; and he 
mixed some rum with the water and tasted it, but the dose was 
indescribably nauseous. 

This discovery was a frightful blow ; so overwhelming that 
it took their minds some minutes to realize it in its full extent. 

They were now absolutely without a drop of fresh water in 
the boat ; which fact was made the more terrible by the consider- 
ation that, up to the moment of discovery, they had believed 
themselves stocked with sufficient water to last them for 
another week at the very least. 

They were appalled, and subdued to images of stone by this 
last and worst addition to the series of heavy misfortunes that 
had befallen them. 

Then Winyard, who was already tormented with thirst, for 
they had permitted themselves to drink no ’water during the 
night, began to blaspheme, rolling his eyes wildly and calling 
curses on the head of the steward ' for his murderous negli- 
gence. He terrified the boy into a passion of tears, which in- 
creased his fury, and he stood uj) and menaced the child with 
his outstretched fist. 

‘ ‘ Sit down ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth, in a voice that fell like 
a blow upon the ear. “You are going mad some days too 
soon, you lubber ! Do you hear me ? Sit down ! ” 

The man scowled at him, and then threw himself backward 
into the bows of the boat. 

“Will your shrieks and oaths give us water ? ” Holdsworth 
continued, bitterly. “ You are not more thirsty than I, or 
this poor lady, from whom you have not heard one syllable of 
•complaint since she was handed into the boat ! ” 

He turned to her with a look of deep compassion. 

“Try to sustain your courage under this awful trial,” he 
exclaimed. “ Our position is not yet hopeless. There is no 
sea more largely navigated than the Atlantic by vessels bound 
to all parts of the world, and I say it is almost inevitable that 
we should fall in with a ship soon.” 

She forced a wan smile for answer, but did not speak; 


THE FOURTH DAY. 


91 


merely put her hand on her child’s shoulder and drew him 
to her. 

As the morning advanced the heat of the sun increased, and 
the rays seemed to absorb the light breeze out of the atmos- 
phere ; the sea turned glassy, and by noon the boat was 
becalmed. Meanwhile, Winyard remained doggedly buried in 
the bows of the boat, sucking his dry lips, with despair legibly 
written upon his countenance. J ohnson api:)eared to find relief 
by plunging his arm in the water and moistening his head and 
face. The very boat took a white, baked, thirsty aspect ; and 
the heat made the paint upon her exhale in a faint and sickly 
smell. 

When the afternoon was waning, Winyard got up and crept 
stealthily to the after-iDart of the boat. Holdsworth kept his 
eyes steadily upon him. His intention, however, was no more 
than to take up the pannikin, which he snatched at hastily, as 
though fearing that his purpose would be frustrated. He then 
hastened forward and filled the vessel from one of the kegs. 

‘‘Don’t drink it ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth ; “ it will increase 
your thirst.” 

But the man, pointing to his throat, swallowed the briny 
draught hastily, then put the pannikin down with a sigh of 
relief, and with a face cleared of something of its peculiar 
expression of pain. 

Johnson seized the pannikin, meaning to follow Winyard’s 
example. Holdsworth entreated him to desist. “ The salt 
will madden you ! ” he exclaimed. He had scarcely said this 
when Winyard began to roll his body about, uttering short, 
sharp cries. 

Immediately afterwards he vomited, his face turned slate- 
color, and they thought he would expire. Holdsworth drained 
some rum into his mouth, and poured sea-water from the pan- 
nikin in long streams over his head. This somewhat revived 
him, but he lay groaning and cursing and clutching at the 
sides of the boat with his finger-nails for many minutes. 

His sufierings frightened Johnson, who called out, 

“ Master, if the water in the kegs is poison, we should let it 
run away.” 


92 


JOHN HOLBSWOnTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ It is worse than poison,” rej)lied Holdswortli. “ Pull out 
the bungs ; the sea-water around us is as wholesome to drink 
as that stuff.” 

Johnson then turned the kegs over and let them drain them- 
selves empty. 

After this a silence fell upon the boat which lasted a full 
hour, when the boy said, 

“ Mamma, I am thirsty. Give me something to drink.” 

It was shocking to hear the child’s complaint, and feel the 
impossibility of satisfying him. The mother started ux) with a 
wild gesture, and cried in a fierce whisper that was thickened 
in its passage through her swollen throat. 

“ Oh my God ! let us both die ! End our misery now.” 

Holdswortli watched her mutely. 

Her appeal died away, and she sank back, exhausted by the 
sudden outbreal^. 

The sun went down, and some clouds came up behind the 
horizon to receive the glowing disk. These spread themselves 
slowly over the heavens, albeit the sea remained breathlessly 
calm ; and thinking that the wind was coming up that way, the 
poor sufferers turned their eyes wildly and eagerly towards the 
west, hoping with a desolate hope for the vessel that was to 
rescue them, but which no day brought. 

When the night fell, Winyard began to sing in a strange, 
husky voice ; but his tones soon died out, and then came the 
small, weak cry of, ‘ ‘ Mamma, I am thirsty ! give me some 
water ! ” from the little boy, wounding the ear with an edge of 
agony in the stillness and the gloom. 

Presently a soft sigh of wind came from the west, wliich 
backed the sail. Holdswortli j)ut the boat’s head round until 
the sail filled, and then hauled the sheet aft, meaning to lay 
close to the wind, that they might sooner encounter the shi^i 
that the wind was to bring. The air sank into a calm again ; 
but another puff followed which made the water gurgle, and it 
was plain that a breeze was coming by the clouds which were 
drifting eastward. The vand freshened, and then became 
steady, and the boat, bending to the weight of the full sail, 
stirred the water into fire, which flashed and vanished in her wake. 


THE FOURTH DAY. 


93 


It mattered little which way Holdsworth steered the boat ; 
blit, let him head her as he would, there was always the haunt- 
ing sense upon him that he was speeding away from the ship 
that would rescue them ; that by pointing yonder, or yonder, 
or yonder, a vessel would be encountered. The breeze and the 
movement of the boat revived Winyard, who lolled over on the 
lee side, finding relief in letting his hands trail through the 
water. The boy had ceased his complaints, and lay sleeping 
along the thwart, with his head on his mother’s knee. John- 
son also slept. 

The thirst that had tormented Holdsworth during the after- 
noon had now in some measure abated. There were four or 
five bottles of rum still left in the stern locker, and, hoping to 
hit upon some means to deal with the sufferings with which 
they were threatened by the absence of water, he soaked a 
j)iece of biscuit in the spirit and tasted it. But he at once 
perceived that no relief was to be obtained by this expedient, 
but that, on the contrary, the spirit would irritate the throat 
and increase the diyness. He threw the piece of biscuit away, 
and began to think over all the stories he had ever heard of 
men who had suffered from thirst in boats at sea, that he might 
recollect any one way they adopted for diminishing their tor- 
ments. He had been shipmates with a man, in one of his 
earlier voyages, wdio, together with three other men, had been 
miraculously rescued by a vessel after they had been at sea in 
an open boat exactly twenty-one days, during wliich they had 
drifted above seven hundred miles from the spot at wdiich 
their ship had gone down. Holdsworth could only remember 
two of the expedients they resorted to when maddened with 
hunger and thirst : one was, tearing off pieces of their shirts 
and chewing them ; the other, cutting wounds in their arms 
and sucking the blood. This last was a remedy from w^hich 
he recoiled with horror ; nor were his sufferings so great just 
then as to tempt him to try the other. 

“Master!” called out Winyard, in a husky voice, “what 
longitude do you reckon we’re in?” 

“We were in twenty-eight w^est when the ship went down, 
and I doubt if we are many miles distant from the same place.” 


94 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ Ain’t there no chance of our sighting a ship, master ? ” 

“Yes, every chance.” 

“I reckon the skipper has run the long boat into the regular 
tracks by this time,” grumbled the man ; “ it’s cursed hard 
upon us that we should be left to die here like dogs.” 

To this Holdsworth made no answer, and Winyard, after 
muttering awhile to himself, began to splash the w^ater in his 
face by scooping it out with his hand. Then Johnson, in his 
sleep, called out for something to drink, on which Winyard, 
with an oath, answered, “Ay, you may call out! If calling 
’ud bring it. I’d make noise enough, I’ll lay I ” 

The clouds overhead, though widely sundered one from an- 
other, were heavy, and Holdsworth constantly directed his 
weary eyes at them, praying for a shower of rain. At mid- 
night or thereabouts Johnson was awakened, and came aft to 
relieve Holdsworth at the helm. The two men whispered to- 
gether about Winyard, saying that he was not to' be trusted 
with the management of the boat while the breeze held ; and 
it was agreed that Holdsworth should replace Johnson at the 
expiration of two hours by the watch, which Johnson took and 
put in his pocket. But before lying down, Holdsworth dij^ped 
the sail and imt the boat around. Her head on the port tack 
was north-west-and-by-north. 

“ Keep a sharp lookout to windward, Johnson, and call me 
at once if you sight anything,” said Holdsworth ; then packed 
himself against the mast and fell into a doze. 

When he was asleej) Winyard came out of the bows, and 
stepped to the stern-sheets and began to talk to Johnson. 
After a while he said he should like to see what quantity of 
biscuit they still had, and lifted the seat over the locker. 
Jiohnson, who suspected nothing, had his eyes fixed on the 
weather horizon ; and Winyard, snatching at a bottle of 
rum, thrust it cunningly into his bosom and hurried for- 
ward. 

All this time the boy was sleeping ; but it was impossible to 
tell whether his mother slumbered or not. She never once 
stirred. She sat on the weather side, close against Johnson. 
Her child’s head was upon her knee, and her hands were 


THE FOURTH DAY. 


95 


clasped upon his shoulder. She kei)t her face bowed, her 
chin upon her breast. 

At two o’clock by the watch Johnson called Holdsworth, 
■who instantly sat upright, and before rising bent his head 
under the foot of the sail to take a look to leeward. He had 
scarcely done this when he uttered a cry, and then fell dumb, 
pointing like a madman. Johnson leaned sideways, and saw 
the outline of a large ship, about a mile distant, running with 
the wind free on her starboard quarter. 

“ Put your helm up ! Head for her ! ” gasped Holdsworth, 
siDi'inging aft ; and then, as the boat swept round, he jumped 
on to a thwart, and hollowing his hands, shouted ; but his 
shout w^as feeble and hoarse, the constricted throat dulled 
and choked his voice. Johnson also shouted, but his voice 
was even weaker than Holdsw^orth’s. 

“ They will not leave us ! they wdll not leave us ! ” shrieked 
Mrs. Tennent, rising suddenly and extending her hands 
towards the ship, which the movement of the boat’s rudder 
had brought on the starboard beam. 

As she cried, "Winyard stood up in the boat’s bows, reeling 
wildly, and mad with the drink he had abstracted. His ges- 
tures and fury w^ere horrible to witness. His husky screeches 
sounded as the voice of one suffering indescribable torment. 
He brandished his arms towards the ship, which was drawing 
ahead rapidly, and in his drunken excitement leaped upon the 
gunwale of the boat, where he stood balancing himself and 
tossing his clinched fists above his head. Just then the boat 
dipped and sank into the hollow of a swell ; the drunken 
madman made a grab at the leach of the sail to steady him- 
self, missed it, and went head backward overboard. 

Holdsworth bounded aft to catch him as he floated past ; 
but he remained under water until the boat was some yards 
ahead, and then they could hear his bubbling cries and the 
splashing of his arms. 

Holdsworth’s first instinct was to bring the boat round ; but 
Johnson divined his intention, and twirling the yoke-lines 
furiously around his hands, cried, 

“No, no ; we can’t save him ! he’ll have sunk before we can 


96 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


reach him ! Let’s follow the ship — she may see us ! ” And 
he bawled ‘ ‘ Ahoy ! ahoy ! ” but his hoarse voice fainted in his 
throat. 

Holdsworth grasped one of the yoke-lines, and there Vvas a 
short struggle. The boat’s head yawed wildly. But by this 
time nothing was to be heard astern but the w^ash of the water 
as the boat sucked it into eddies. 

Holdsworth let go the yoke-line, sprang forward, and dipi^ed 
the sail clear of the mast, crying that there were four lives to 
be saved, and it would be as bad as murder to sto^) the boat 
now. 

The ship was distinctly visible on the port bow, every sail 
on her standing in a clean black outline against the sky. She 
showed no lights, and further than that she was a full-rigged 
ship it was impossible to tell what she resembled. They 
watched her with wild despair, utterly powerless to attract her 
attention, and dependent upon the faint possibility of their 
glimmering sail being distinguishable on the black surface 
of the water. If the wind would only lull now, if such a 
calm as that which had held them motionless the day before 
would fall, their rescue was inevitable. But the light breeze 
remained steady, and the ship ahead slipped forward nimbly, 
and became soon a square shadow against the winking stars 
over the horizon. 

How horrible to be abandoned for lack of means to make 
their presence known ! Any kind of light would have served 
them. 

The widow moaned and beat her breast as the vessel faded 
into the darkness ; Johnson flung himself doggedly down, and 
sat resting his elbow on his knee, gnawing his finger-nails ; 
while Holdsworth stood upright forward, gazing with wild, 
passionate, intense despair in the direction of the ship long 
after she had vanished. 

There could be little doubt that, had Johnson kept a proper 
lookout, he would have seen the ship in time to put his helm 
up, and run within easy hail of her. Holdsworth knew this, 
but would not increase the misery of their situation by useless 
reproaches. 


THE FOURTH DAY. 


97 


The child, who had been awakened by their cries, now that 
silence had fallen, began to ask eagerly and importunately for 
water, and even reproached his mother for not attending to 
him. 

“I am hot — hot!” he petitioned. ‘‘Mamma, give me 
water.” 

Once during his appeals she started up and glared about 
her, as if there must be some means of relieving his sufferings ; 
and then crying, “I shall go mad I ” fell back with a low, 
heart-broken sob, and spoke no more, though the child per- 
sisted in his entreaties for a long while. Finally he burst into 
tears, and after plucking at his throat for a time, sank into an 
uneasy slumber, in which he uttered low, moaning cries re- 
peatedly. 

A stupor now fell upon Holdsworth — a species of drowsy in- 
difference to his fate and to the fate of his companions. He 
had fallen wearily upon a thwart, and sat with his back against 
the mast, and visions' began to float before him, and his whole 
physical being seemed lapped into a dreamy insensibility that 
subdued, while it lasted, that subtle, agonizing craving for 
water which, since he was awakened from his sleep, had tor- 
mented him with a pang more exquisite than any other form 
of human suffering. He fought with the dangerous listlessness 
for some time, terrified at, without understanding, its import ; 
but in spite of him his mind 'wandered, and he presently 
thought that Dolly was at his side ; whereupon he addressed 
her, and seemed to receive her answers, and asked her ques- 
tions in a low, strange voice, often smiling, as though the light 
of her eyes were upon his face and his arm around her. 

His language was audible and intelligible ; but Johnson, 
with one of the yoke-lines over his knees, his head supported 
in his hands, xDaid no more heed to him than to the flapping of 
the sail as the boat sometimes broached to, which insensibility 
was as shocking as the other’s delirious chattering. 

7 


98 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


CHAPTEK XI. 

THE FIFTH DAY. 

In this way the boat drifted on until the dawn broke, when 
the wind fell. 

Johnson lifted his head and looked about him — and first for 
the ship that ‘had passed them in the night, but she was nowhere 
visible — then at Holdsworth, whose delirium had yielded to 
sleep, and who slumbered with his feet on the thwai-t, his 
back arched like a bow, and his head between his knees ; then 
at the widow, who drooped against the boat’s side, her arm 
over the gunwale and her hand in the water. 

The boy was wide awake, reclining in the bottom of the 
boat, with his head against his mother’s dress. His eyes 
looked large and glassy, his lips white, and his skin dusky- 
hued. When he met Johnson’s gaze, he smiled as though he 
would coax him to give him what he wanted, and tried to 
speak, but his lips rather formed than delivered the word 
‘‘ water.” The man stared at him with the insensibility of de- 
spair in his eyes ; and the boy, thinking that he had not heard 
him, and that he would get what he desired if he could but 
articulate his wish, tried to stand up, meaning to draw close to 
the man’s ear ; but his legs sank under him, and so he re- 
mained at the bottom of the boat, smiling wanly and pointing 
to his throat, as though such dumb show must needs soften 
Johnson’s heart and obtain some water for him. 

Holdsworth awoke with a start and tried to speak, but the 
roof of his mouth was dry, and his tongue felt rusty, like a 
cat’s ; moreover, his throat burned, and the sounds he uttered 
scathed and lacerated him. 

The boy, seeing him awake, turned to him as a friend who 
would relieve him, and moaned his distress. The spectacle oi- 
his agony and his own sufferings maddened Holdsworth. All 
along he had dreaded the temptation of the rum, the fiery 


THE FIFTH DAY, 


99 


quality of which, while it momentarily allayed, would, he was 
sure, aggravate tenfold the craving for water. But suffering 
mastered him now. He seized the pannikin, and pouring out 
some of the liquor, put it to the boy’s dry lips. He drank 
greedily, but the ardent spirit checked his breath, and he 
struggled wildly, beating the air with his little hands. 

But meanwhile Holdsworth had also drunk, and handed the 
remainder of the draught to Johnson, his throat softened, and 
his tongue capable now of articulation. Johnson drew a deep 
breath, and exclaimed, 

“ Thank God for that, master. I should have taken it be- 
fore had I thought it good for me.” 

Holdsworth gave the boy a biscuit, which he grabbed at, 
and thrust large pieces into his mouth, as though seeking to 
extinguish the fire that the rum had kindled. 

When the iDain of the burning spirit had passed, he said, 
‘‘ Give mamma some. When you were asleep, Mr. Holdsworth, 
I heard her calling for water.” 

Holdsworth, thinking that she slept, would not arouse her ; 
but noticing that her arm hung awkwardly over the boat’s side 
and left the half-closed fingers trailing in the water, he raised 
it gently to place her hand on her lap. In doing this he ob- 
served a lifelessness in her arm such as sleep could not induce. 
He peered into her face, and cried out, quickly, 

“ Oh, my God ! ” Then bade Johnson move that he might 
get beside her, and reverently lifted her head. 

There was no need to glance twice at her face to know what 
had happened, although the heart-broken expression in it 
would almost suggest that she slept, and was dreaming a pain- 
ful dream. Her eyes were half closed, her under jaw had 
dropped, yet she looked even in her death a sweet, long-suffer- 
ing woman. 

Give her something to drink,” pleaded the little boy, pas- 
sionately, imagining from her silence, and the expression on 
her face, that she was suffering as he had, and could not 
^speak. 

' She don’t want it — she’s dead, 1 ” answ^ered Johnson. 

Holdsworth half turned, but checked the exclamation that 


100 


JOHN H0LD8W0BT1I, CHIEF MATE, 


rose to liis lips, feeling that the bitter truth must be made 
known to the child sooner or later. 

The boj did not understand the answer ; he crawled upon 
liis mother’s knee, with the pannikin in his hand, which he 
held out while he said, Wake up, mamma ! Open your eyes ! 
Mr. Holdsworth will give you something to drink.” 

Holdsworth removed the child, and seated him near the 
mast, and bade him stop there. He then returned, and, lifting 
the poor woman from her seat, placed her gently in the bot- 
tom of the boat, throwing her dress over her face to hide the 
anguish in it and blot out the mockery of the daylight. 

The boy began to cry, and asked Mr. Holdswoi’th to wake 
his mamma up. 

Neither of the men could answer him. 

Shortly after this the wind veered round to the north, and 
came on to blow in quick, fretful puffs. The sky grew cloudy, 
and indications were not wanting of the a]3proach of a gale. 
Holdsworth took the helm, while Johnson lowered the sail and 
close-reefed it, and the quick jump of the sea, coupled with the 
small space of sail shown, making it impossible for them to 
head for the east without driving bodily to leeward, they slack- 
ened out the sheet and let the boat run, keeping the wind 
about two points on her port quarter. 

A squall of rain came up and wetted them. They turned 
their mouths in the direction whence it came and gaped to 
receive the delicious drops ; but it blew against their faces and 
slantwise along the sea, and was soon over. It left a little pool 
on one of the thwarts, and Holdsworth told the boy to put his 
lips to it. He did so, and lapped the moisture like a dog ; 
while Holdsworth and Johnson removed the handkerchiefs 
from their necks, which the rain had damped, and sucked them. 

The wind increased, the sea became heavy, and the heavens 
overcast with a vast extent of lead-colored clouds that stretched 
from horizon to horizon. At noon, when the boat was on the 
summit of a wave, Johnson caught sight of a vessel on their 
lee quarter. The boat plunged downward, and the vessel was 
lost to view ; but, on mounting again, they beheld the vessel, 
under doubled-reefed topsails, standing westward right across 


THE FIFTH DAT. 


101 


their stern. She was not above a mile and a half away, but 
she might as well have been a thousand, for the boat could no 
more have made for her in that sea than she could have sailed 
in the wind’s eye. There was a faint chance that the people 
on board of her might catch sight of the shawl that streamed 
like a black flag from the mast-head ; and each time the boat 
sank into a hollow the poor men waited, with wild and dread- 
ful eagerness, for her to rise that they might observe whether 
the vessel liad seen and was following them. But she did not 
alter her course, and in ten minutes’ time vanished in the 
haze. 

Neither of the men spoke ; Johnson, by the expression on 
his face, appeared to have resigned himself to despair, and all 
Holdsworth’s thoughts were concentrated in keeping the boat 
clear of the seas which boiled around her. He was very weak ; 
so much so that there were moments when, a sea catching the 
boat under the stern, he had scarcely the power to keei^ the 
yoke square and prevent the rudder from being jammed 
athwart ships upon its pins by the pressure of the water ; 
which, had it happened, would have swept the boat broadside 
on and filled her. 

Added to this, the torment of thirst was again upon him. He 
kept the end of his handkerchief in his mouth, literally chew- 
ing it to pulp, and constantly directing thirsty glances at the 
clouds, and praying for another shower of rain. 

His own suffering made him perceive that the rum would be 
a curse to them while it lasted, inducing them to drink it, and 
presently maddening them with fresh accesses of thirst. The 
boy was suffering again, and was crawling upon his hands and 
knees over the thwarts in search of some rain moisture ; and 
presently Holdsworth saw him put his tongue against the mast 
and lick it. Johnson hung, with an air of despairful reckless- 
ness, over the boat’s side, dashing the water in his face, and 
letting the foam fly up his arm and soak his breast. 

The boat presently made a plunge downward — a long, wild, 
sweeping fall ; the roaring of the waves sounded overhead ; 
the sail flapped, and there was pause of breathless calm that 
lasted some moments. 


102 


JOHN H0LD8W0BTH, CHIEF MATE. 


Holdsworth looked behind him aod shrieked out, ‘‘Seize 
the boy and throw yourself down !” 

The man extended his hands, and grappling the child, rolled 
backward under a thwart. 

It came — a huge, green, unbroken sea, arching its emerald 
top on a level with the yard of the sail, and following the boat 
with a spring like a tiger’s. Holdsworth stretched himself out, 
his feet hard against the aftermost thwart, his back squared, his 
elbows out, his hands grasping the yoke lines with a death grip. 

Up went the boat, stem up, yet up, as though she must be 
hung clean over on end ; then came the rush and roar of water ; 
it fell with a weight of lead on Holdsworth’s back, and beat, 
with a ponderous single blow, the breath out of him, but could 
not root him from his seat ; it broke into a vast surface of foam, 
divided and swept forward, hissing, spluttering, bubbling, 
raging ; met at an angle at the boat’s bows and half hlled her. 
Down she swooped into another hollow, and half the water ran 
out over her bows, the remainder, as she rose, came rushing aft 
and hlled the stern-sheets ; and up and down, up and down it 
washed. 

But the boat still lived, and Holdsworth was her master. 

“ Bear a hand aft here and bale her out ! ” he shouted. 

Johnson let go the half-drowned cliild, and struggled over 
the thwarts, blowing and shaking his soaked hair like rope- 
yarns off his face, his clothes streaming with water ; hopped 
down, found the cocoa-nut shell, and baled with fury. 

The child crouched in the bows, too terrihed to cry. 

The boat hashed along, skimming the frothing heads of the 
waves ; she had outlived an exceptionally heavy sea, and 
seemed to feel her triumph as she hew. 

But oh, the ghastly burden that she bore : the dead and 
dripping woman, off whose face the water had washed the cov- 
ering, and left it naked to the daylight ; the gaunt, bearded 
spectre baling out the boat on his knees, his wet clothes cling- 
ing to his frame like a skin of silk, and disclosing the piteous 
attenuation of the body ; the steersman, with wild and lustrous 
eyes sunk deep in livid sockets, the yoke-lines wnithed around 
his lean, brown hands, his lips cracked, and his 


THE FIFTH DAY, 


103 


long, neglected hair hanging like a wet mat over his forehead 
and down his back ; and the shivering little figure in the bows, 
his hands squeezed together in an attitude of prayer, and his 
small face glimmering with unearthly ghastliness upon the 
gray background of the boat’s interior. 

Some flying-fish leaped out of the sea close to the boat, and 
buried their silver arrow-like shapes in a wave some distance 
ahead. Then the sun broke through a rent in the broad, som- 
bre cloud, and made the pelting ocean joyous with a snatch 
of cheerful light. But the strong wind lasted all the after- 
noon, and when it lulled just before sunset, Holdsworth was so 
exhausted that, in rising to give his seat to Johnson, he reeled 
and sank in a heap close beside the corpse at the bottom of the 
boat, and lay motionless and insensible. Johnson made no 
effort to restore him. Indeed, he thought he was dead. His 
own brain whirled ; his tongue seemed to fill his mouth ; 
there crept over him such a stupor as had visited Holds-^orth ; 
he let the yoke-lines go, and fixing his eyes on the sea, pre- 
pared to meet the death which his sensations led him to be- 
lieve was at hand. 

The boat, tossed like a cork on the troubled water, broached 
to ; but happily the wind w^as momentarily dying away ; her 
head came round to the seas, and she rode with as much safety 
as if Holdsworth were at the helm. 

For a whole hour the interior of the boat presented the same 
scene ; the men motionless as the dead body, the boy squatting 
in the bows, with nothing seemingly alive about him but his 
eyes, which winked as he rolled them seaward, where the sun 
shone on the water. Then Holdsworth began to groan and 
stir ; whereupon J ohnson fixed his dull eyes upon him, and 
watched him without any curiosity, without any sym^^athy, 
without any interest — indeed, scarcely, I might say, with hu- 
man intelligence. 

The boy, seeing Holdsworth move, came creeping aft and 
remained on his knees, first looking at the man awaking to 
consciousness, and then at his mother, whose motionless and 
drowned aspect, and face made unfamiliar to him by its total 
want of expression, terrified him. 


104 


JOHN HOLDSWOETH, CHIEF MATE, 


Holdsworth raised his head and looked about him in be- 
wilderment. 

“ Where have I been ? What has happened ? ” he cried. 

He fixed his eyes on the dead woman, his glance reverted to 
the boy, and then consciousness fully awoke. He rose wearily 
to his feet, and sank, with a heavy sigh, near Johnson, at whom 
he looked, scarcely knowing whether the man slept or was dead. 

The boy begged for water. 

“Water!” exclaimed Holdsworth, in a choking voice; 
“ there is none.” 

But there was biscuit, and he turned to the locker to give 
him one, thinking that the food might relieve the child’s thirst. 
He stretched out his arm to lift the seat of the locker, and 
found the locker filled with salt-water. With a cry of despair 
he dragged out a bag streaming with wet, and, thrusting his 
hand into it, found its contents soaked into pulp. The other 
bag was in the same condition ; and, to make matters worse, 
of the three bottles of rum that had been in the locker one only 
was left ; the other two were cracked and empty. 

It was easy to understand how this had happened. A sea 
breaking over the boat’s stern could not have filled the locker; 
the water which the boat had shipped over her bows had come 
rushing aft when the boat mounted the next wave, and, filling 
the stern-sheets, raised the seat that formed the lid of the 
locker, and poured over the biscuit, at the same time forcing 
the bottles against each other and breaking them. 

‘ ‘ Do you see what has happened ? ” exclaimed Holdsworth, 
grasping Johnson’s arm. 

The man looked over his shoulder, shook his head, and 
muttered, “ We’re doomed to die. There’s no hope, master.” 

What was to be done ? Holdsworth thought that if the 
biscuits could be dried in the sun they might be fit to eat, and 
endeavored to spread some of them along the thwart ; but the 
stuff squeezed up in his hand like thick paste. He tasted a 
little and found it no better than salt, and he flung the bag 
down with a groan that seemed to express the extinction of his 
last faint hope. 

But there was a bottle of rum left. He prized out the cork 


THE FIFTH DAY. 


105 


with the blade of his knife, and gave a spoonful to the boy 
diluted with two or three drops of sea-water. He then set the 
pannikin to Johnson’s lips, who sucked the hard metal rim as 
a baby might. Finally, moistening his own throat with a small 
quantity of the liquor, he carefully corked the bottle and 
stow^ed it away. 

No ! To say that hope had entirely abandoned him w^ould 
not be true. While the heart continues to pulsate hoj^e will 
still be found to live, how^ever faintly, in its throbs, though 
each moment be heavy with pain, and nothing seem sure but 
anguish and death. 

The wind had died awa}^, but the boat rose and sank to the long 
and heavy swell that billowed the gleaming sui’face of the sea 
to the horizon. Far away in the south was an expanse of gray 
cloud, with slanting lines radiating to the sea from it, and a bright 
square of rainbow embedded in its shadow. It was travelling 
eastward, and the rain would not touch the boat. Elsewhere 
the sky was a bright blue, with here and there clouds of glori- 
ous whiteness and majestic bulk — mountains with shining de- 
files and a splendor of sunshine in their skirts — hanging their 
swelling forms over the sea. The sun was hot ; but then, 
ever since they had been in the boat, they had been steering 
more or less south, and, taking the parallels in which the 
ship had foundered as a starting-point, every degiee the boat 
made southward would furnish an appreciable change of tem- 
j)erature. 

The rum had worked beneficially in Johnson, who. now 
began to stretch his body and look about him. 

“Another calm, master,” he said, in a voice to which the 
dryness of his throat imparted a harsh, unnatural tone. 
thought I was dead and gone just now. God help us ! I don’t 
think none of us three’ll live to talk of this here time ! ” 

“ We must put that poor body overboard,” said Holdsworth. 
“ It isn’t fit that her child should see her like that. Will you 
take him for’ard and stand between him and me, so that he 
can’t see what I’m doing, and talk to him a bit ? I almost wish 
they had both died together. The sight of his sufferings 
makes mine more than I can bear.” 


106 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


He stifled a sob, and Johnson, getting up languidly and 
holding on to the gunwale of the boat with one hand, took the 
boy by the arm and led him into the bows. 

Holdsworth slackened off the halyards to lower the sail and 
screen the after-part of the boat from the boy’s sight. He 
then, with what strength he had, and as quickly as he could, 
raised the dead body and let it slip over the stern, muttering 
a simple ^Drayer, as he did so, that God would let her meet her 
child in heaven, where they would never more be parted, and 
then turned his back upon the water and hid his face in his 
hands. At the end of five minutes he stole a glance astern — 
the body had disappeared. 

“Four,” he muttered, “and three more to go ! O God, 
what work — what work this has been ! ” 

His thoughts went to Dolly. If he died, what would be- 
come of her? Not for many days yet, even supposing the 
other boats should make their way to land or be rescued by a 
passing shij), would the news of the Metem'^s loss reach her ; 
and he thought of her praying night and morning for him, 
straining her fond eyes into the dim future, where the coming 
summer was, with all its flowers and its sunshine ; where the 
happy day was that should bring him to her. If the news of 
the shipwreck ever reached her, how would her gentle spirit 
support the blow? But worse would it be if she remained 
ignorant of her loss ; because in that case she would live on 
in hope for months and months, wakening every morning with 
the idea that “ To-day he may come ! to-day he may come ! ” 
until hope sickened, and despair should bring cruel assurance 
of eternal separation — the more unendurable because she 
should not know why he did not come — whether he were living 
or dead — whether he were true or false to her. 

Oh, for the power of giving peace to that manly, unoffending 
heart ! 

We shed tears, and well we may, God knows, over the priva- 
tions of shipwrecked men, over the hunger and thirst and the 
mortal bodily agonies of poor souls doomed to die a lingering 
and shocking death in open boats, storm-tossed, or baking in 
breathless calms, under the burning eye of the sun ; but do we 


THE FIFTH DAT. 


107 


think of that deeper misery of theirs — that poignant mental 
torture, compared to which the sufferings of the flesh are as 
naught — the thoughts of those they shall see no more — of 
wives and sisters and mothers and little children, many of 
whom may, perchance, never hear the story of their fate, and 
can have no tear for the famine and the thirst that wasted the 
flesh off their skins, and submitted them to greater torture 
than the heart can bear to think of ? 

Holdsworth had believed that the sufferings of the boy 
would engross all his thoughts in himself, and that, though 
he might miss, he would not cry for his mother. But he was 
deceived ; for no sooner had the little fellow discovered that 
she was gone from her place in the bottom of the boat, than 
he uttered a sharp cry, and asked Holdsworth where his 
mamma was. 

Holdsworth took him upon his knee, but could not answer. 
The child persisted in his inquiries, looking the while sus- 
piciously and eagerly about him, particularly over the stern, 
where he had remembered seeing the actor disappear. 

‘‘ She is gone to God,” Holdsworth said at last. ‘‘ My little 
man, you will meet her again.” 

“ To God ! ” cried the child. That’s where papa is ! ” 

He looked up with startled eyes at the sky, and then sobbed 
passionately, “ Has she left me alone? has she left me alone !” 

“No, she has left you to me. Be a good boy now, and 
don’t cry, and I wull take care of you, and love you dearly.” 

His words smote him as the idlest mockery ; but, apart from 
his mental sufferings, the mere effort of raising his voice pained 
him intensely. He put the child down, forcing a smile which 
seemed no better than a grin of pain upon his emaciated face, 
and then stood up to sweej) the horizon, but soon sank down 
again with a sound as of a clanging of bells in his ears, and 
his throat constricted and burning with a dry, feverish heat, 
the pain of which w^as exquisite. 

He was now sensible that his memory was going, for, in try- 
ing to think of the child’s name, he found that he could not 
recall it. But this somehow gave him no concern, for his 
whole physical being was in perfect accord with such lapses of 


108 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTII, CHIEF MATE. 


the intellectual faculties, and the discovery bred not the light- 
est movement of surprise or apprehension in his mind. 

At noon Johnson asked for more rum, and Holdsworth meas- 
ured out a small quantity for the three of them, diluting the 
draught, as he had before done, with a few drops of salt-water. 

The boy never moved from the seat where he had been 
placed by Holdsworth; he knew not, in reality, where his 
mother had gone, but there was plainly a suspicion in him 
that she was in the sea, and he kept his eyes fixed on the 
water, as though in expectation of her rising at the side of the 
boat. He shed no more tears ; indeed, physical weakness had 
so far conquered him that it had rendered him incapable of 
tears. The sight of his white, young, piteous face, his head 
moving on his shoulders in convulsive jerks, and his helpless, 
down-hanging arms, was enough to make one pray to God that 
death might remove him speedily, if the term of horrible mis- 
ery were not to be ended at once. 

The afternoon passed, and the sun went down behind a calm 
sea. While the crimson flush still lived in the sky, a flock of 
sea-birds came from the south, and hovered awhile over the 
boat, as though irresolute to quit it for their farther destina- 
tion. They were at too great an elevation to enable the men 
to judge what birds they were ; but they emitted harsh sounds, 
resembling in some measure the cry of gulls, mixed with the 
rough intonation of rooks, jifter this pause, they pursued 
their flight, and soon winged themselves out of view, but not 
without leaving behind them a species of desolate hope, such 
as would be excited in the minds of men w^ho had been long 
banished from the sight of living things, and by whom the 
most trivial incident would be interpreted as an auspicious 
omen. 

Holdsworth and Johnson drew together and spoke of what 
these birds portended. The wildest fantasies were begotten, 
and they sought to encourage themselves with dreams which 
a listener would have shuddered over as the babbling of de- 
lirium. Their thoughts being loosened they jpresently began 
to complain of hunger ; and Johnson took up a piece of the 
pulpy biscuit which lay on a thwart and. which the sun had 


THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH DAYS. 


109 


hardened, and bit it, bnt instantly ejected it, saying that it 
was bitterer than gall. Indeed, had there been more light 
they would have seen the frost-like crystals of salt which had 
been dried into the biscuit by the sun’s action. However, 
their hunger was not so fierce but that they could endure it yet 
awhile. 

The night came down, quite radiant with stars, with not a 
cloud in all the great dome of glittering sky. The two men 
were now so regardless of their fate that they entered into no 
arrangement as to keeping watch, but folded their arms upon 
their breasts and slept or fell into a semi-unconscious state — 
lethargies so sinister that it was hard to tell whether they were 
not the sloping ways to death. Fitful cries sometimes broke 
from them, resembling the echoes which are awakened in the 
caverns of a bird-frequented cliff, but with notes of human 
anguish in them that made the glory of the stars a hellish 
mockery. 

The boy slipped from his seat and lay x^i’one at the bottom 
of the boat, unheeded by either Holdsworth or Johnson. 

So i)assed the night. 


CHAPTEE XII. 

THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH DAYS. 

The dawn awoke Johnson, who remained seated for some 
time motionless, with his open eyes fixed upon the sea half- 
way to the horizon. As he continued gazing, a wild smile of 
joy kindled up his face and parted his cracked lips into a grin 
so extravagant, so indescribable, that it converted his face into 
a likeness of humanity as repulsive and unreal as an ugly paper 
mask. 

He thrust his bony fingers into Holdsworth’s collar and 
shook him violently while he pointed to the sea with his right 
hand. 

“ Look ! look ! ” he cried. 


‘‘ Wake up ! wake up ! there is 


110 


JOHN HOLBSWORTE, CHIEF MATE. 


the land ! See the houses, master, and the trees ! O, Jesus, 
how green they are ! Wake up, I say ! ” 

Holdsworth started up violently and shook himself, with a 
mighty effort, clear of the benumbing torpor that had weighed 
him down throughout the night. He stared in the direction 
indicated by Johnson, then rubbed his eyes furiously with his 
knuckles, and stared again, but could see nothing but the 
ocean growing blue under the gathering light in the east, and 
stretching its illimitable surface to the horizon. 

‘ ‘ Come, master, let’s get the oars out. Why, where have we 
drifted ? O, Lord, see the trees ! how green and beautiful ! I 
reckon there’s water there — and I’ll strip and souse in it. Will 
they see us ? Wave your hat.” 

He took off his own and brandished it furiously. But all on 
a sudden he let fall his arm ; he stretched his head forward 
and his glassy eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets ; 
his breath went and came shrilly through his open mouth ; 
and then, giving a scream, he shrieked, “ It’s gone ! it’s gone ! ” 
and as if the disappointment were a blow dealt him by some 
heavy instrument, he gave a great gasp, collapsed, and fell 
like a bundle of rags from his seat. 

The fit of convulsive trembling that had seized Holdsworth 
passed ; he caught sight of the boy lying on his side, with his 
eyes, wide open, fixed upon his face. The child was pointing 
to his throat. Holdsworth raised him and laid him along the 
seat, not conceiving that the little creature had fallen from his 
resting-place during the night, but that he had placed himself 
in that x^osition the better to rest his limbs. 

He moistened his lips with rum, but on looking attentively 
at his face, perceived indications denoting approaching death 
as clearly as^ though the piteous message was written upon his 
brow. This perception gave him exquisite misery. The 
bright eyes of the child, suggesting sweet memories of the lit- 
tle wife he had left at Southbourne, had endeared the boy to 
him ; he had been his playmate and companion on the Meteor ; 
he had w^atched the deep and beautiful love of the mother ; 
and her death, recent as it was, had imparted the deep- 
est pathos to the little orphan, and made his claims upon 


THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH DATS. 


Ill 


Holdsworth’s protection and love infinitely eloqnent and ap- 
j)ealing. That he should be dying now — now that the bright 
sun was climbing the brilliant morning sky — dying for want 
of a cup of water, a morsel of bread — dying without a mother’s 
love to enfold him in his last struggle and waft his young and 
innocent soul to God on the wings of a prayer such as her 
agony, her devotion, only could dictate — oh, it was too pitiful ! 

“ My little boy, look up ! — tell me — do you suffer? Where 
is the pain ? Is it in your throat ? Oh, my poor innocent ! ” 

His tears blinded him. He took his handkerchief and 
dipped it into the sea and laid it upon the child’s throat. 

The little creature seemed to feel his love, for he made a 
movement as if he would nestle against him, and smiled wanly, 
but could not speak. His young, dying face was an unbear- 
able sight, and Holdsworth, groaning, gazed wildly around the 
horizon as if there — or there— or there — must be the ship sent 
by God to save the boy’s life. 

A long hour passed ; the child still lived, and Holdsworth 
hung over him, heedless of the other poor creature who had 
awakened to consciousness, but yet lay in a heap, supporting 
his head against the stanchion of a thwart, and watching his 
companions with glazed eyes. Then a craving for food 
mastered Holdsworth, and he looked at the biscuit, but had 
yet sufficient control over himself not to touch it, knowing the 
penalty of increased thirst that must follow the absorption of 
the brine into his stomach. He went to the locker and 
plunged his arm into the water that half filled it, and groped 
about in search of he knew not what ; something to appease 
his craving might be there ; but he found nothing but slimy 
pieces of biscuit and the broken bottles. 

In a sudden fury of hunger he tore off his boot and cut a 
piece of the leather from the top of it, and began to chew it. 

The mere act of mastication somewhat diminished his suffer- 
ing, and he returned to the boy. No marked change had oc- 
curred within the hour, but, imperceptible as the departure 
might be, it was only too evident that the child was dying. 
Thirst, exposure, and grief — for there had been something so 
akin to a heartbroken expression in the little fellow’s eyes 


112 


JOHN HOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


when he stared at the sea, expecting his mother to rise from it, 
that it would be impossible to doubt the keenness of liis sor- 
row — these things had done their work. 

Holdsworth bathed his face and throat with salt-water, and 
again offered to moisten his lips with rum ; but the boy made 
a gesture of dissent. Indeed, the rum served no other end 
than to irritate his lips and his tongue, which was swollen and 
discolored. 

As the day wore on, the torment of thirst abated in Holds- 
worth, and Johnson also seemed to suffer less. The first agony 
which thirst brings with it, and which endures for two or three 
days, was passing ; the next stage would be a kind of in- 
sensibility to the craving for water ; but this would presently 
be followed by a renewal of the suffering in its sharpest form, 
which would continue until death ended it. 

Throughout the afternoon Holdsworth remained at the side 
of the boy, who lay with half-closed eyes and no movement of 
the body save the faint rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. 
They were neither of them much more than skeletons ; and so 
ashen was the complexion of Holdsworth, so lustreless his eyes, 
so wild and gaunt and ragged his whole face with the grizzly 
beard, the white lips, the livid hollows beneath tlie eyes, and 
the twisted, knotted hair upon his forehead and down his 
back, that he seemed much nearer to death than the child, 
whose infancy saved his face from being made actually reiDul- 
sive by suffering. 

Before sunset the boy became delirious, and mouthed shock- 
ing gibberish, being unable to articulate. For a whole half- 
hour this babbling lasted and then died out, and the boy 
grew conscious. Holdsworth supported his head on his knee, 
but he slightly twisted it round to look at the sun, which was 
just then resting, a great orb of burning gold, upon the line of 
the horizon. He watched the sun intently, undazzled by the 
splendor, until it vanished, when he uttered a low, wailing cry 
and stretched his arms out to it. Holdsworth felt his little 
body trembling, and some convulsive movements passed 
through him. Holdsworth kissed his forehead, and the boy 
smiled, and with that smile his spirit passed away. 


THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH DAYS. 


113 


When he could not donbt that he was dead, Holdswoi-th 
removed the little jacket from the child’s back, covered his 
face with it, and laid him in the bottom of the boat. 

The mere exertion of doing this made him fall, half swoon- 
ing, upon a seat, on which Johnson came staggering over the 
thwarts and gave him some rum. There was now no more 
than a quarter of a q)int left in the bottle. 

“Master,” said the man, bringing his lips close to Holds- 
worth’s ear, “if I die first, iDlease throw my body overboard. 
I don’t like the notion of drifting about in this boat maybe for 
weeks, and becoming a sight not fit to be looked at if e’er a 
ship should come by.” 

“ I sha’n’t live to do you that service,” muttered Holdsworth. 
“ I don’t feel as if I could last out much longer.” 

“The curse of God is on us!” said Johnson. “There’s 
nothing but calms, and to think of two being left out o’ 
seven 1 ” 

The night fell quickly. At about ten o’clock a breeze came 
up from the north, and blew coolly and gratefully over the 
burning heads of the two men. It took the boat aback, and 
Holdsworth, acting from sheer instinct, put her before it, and, 
hauling the sheet aft, steered east. No clouds came up with 
the wind ; it was a summer breeze which might lull at any 
moment, or veer round, perhaps, to the southwest, and bring 
up a change of weather. 

Lying pretty close to the wind, the boat required no steer- 
ing, which was fortunate, for the yoke -lines soon slipped Out 
of Holdsworth’s hands and a torpor stole over him, which, 
without actually suspending his consciousness, rendered his 
perceptions dreamy and useless. He rested with his back 
against the side of the boat, his head upon his breast, and his 
eyes half closed. Johnson crouched near the mast. 

The breeze proved steady during the night, but died away 
toward the small hours ; then, at daybreak, sprang up afresh 
from the Wjgst. The heeling over of the boat aroused the two 
men, who languidly, and with gestures terribly significant of 
their growing indifference to their fate, dipped the sail, and 
again let the boat lie close to save the trouble of steering her. 

8 


114 


JOHN HOLDSWORTll CHIEF MATE, 


When the morning was a little advanced, Johnson crept to 
the side of the dead boy and groped about him. 

‘‘ What are you doing ? ” cried Holdsworth, fierce^. 

“ Feeling if there isn’t a piece of ship’s bread in his 
pockets,” answered the man, doggedly, and looking up with a 
wolfish light in his sunken eyes. 

“ Let him alone ! ” said Holdsworth. 

The man dragged himseK away reluctantly, grumbling to 
himself, and resumed his place near the mast, keeping his eye 
steadfastly fixed on the dead body. 

A sick shudder i)assed through Holdsworth as he observed 
the man’s peculiar stare, and sinking on his knees, he uncov- 
ered the child’s face and inspected it attentively, to satisfy him- 
self that he was actually dead. He then raised him in his 
arms with the intention of casting him overboard. But John- 
son came scrambling over to him and grasped him by the 
wrist. 

The expression of his face, made devilish by suffering, was 
heightened to the horribly grotesque by the action of his 
mouth, wdiich gaped and contorted ere he could articulate. 

‘ ‘ What are you going to do — keei? him ? ” he exclaimed. 

‘‘ Why ? ” answered Holdsworth, looking him full in the face. 

But the man could not deliver the idea that was in his mind ; 
he could only look it. 

Holdsworth turned his back upon him and raised his burden 
on a level with the boat’s gunwale, but Johnson grasped the 
body with both hands. 

“ Let go ! ” said Holdsworth. 

The man wfitli an oath retained his hold. Weak as Holds- 
worth was, the passion that boiled in him at the desecration 
the haK-maddened TVTetch was doing his j)oor little favorite 
gave him temporarily back his old strength. He raised his 
foot, and planting it in Johnson’s chest, hurled him back ; the 
man fell with a crash over the thwart, and lay stunned. 

Holdsworth leaned over the boat’s side and let the body 
gently sink in the water ; which done, he felt that his own turn 
was come, and dropped in the stem-sheets groaning, with 
drops in his eyes that scalded them. 


THE TENTH DA Y. 


115 


But he still lived, and while his heart beat nature would 
assert herself. Towards the afternoon a torturing craving for 
food beset him, started him into life, and made him sit upright. 
He wiped the foam from his lips, and beheld it discolored 
with blood. He looked savagely around him like a wild beast, 
and beholding nothing but the dry, bare seats, the boat’s hot 
interior, with the gratings whitened by the heat of the sun, 
and underneath them the glistening water that bubbled coolly 
and with a maddening suggestion of sparkling, refreshing 
springs, he dragged his knife from his pocket, pierced his arm, 
and put his lips to the wound. 

* * * * * * * * 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE TENTH DAY. 

It was morning on the tenth day, dating from the founder- 
ing of the Meteor. 

A barge of about six hundred tons, named the Jessie Maxwell^ 
three weeks out from the port of Glasgow, having been be- 
calmed all night, was standing south with all sail set, and a 
gentle breeze on the beam. 

It was the second officer’s watch on deck ; he was sitting 
trimming his nails on the grating abaft the wheel, when the 
man who was steering, pointing to the horizon a few points 
before the port beam, asked him if he could see anything 
black there.' The second officer not having very good sight, 
stared awffiile and declared that he saw nothing ; then, going 
forward, called to a man in the main-top to tell him if there 
was anything to be seen on the port beam. The man, shading 
his eyes, sang out that he could see a black object, but whether 
it was a boat or a piece of wreck he couldn’t say. Whereupon 
Mr. Anderson stepped to the companion-hatchway, took down 
the glass, and, having adjusted it to his sight, levelled it. 

“ By thunder ! ” he cried, keeping the glass to his eye, “ it’s 


116 


JOHN HOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


a boat — and there’s a mast, and a lug-sail — and something 
black at the mast-head. But the de’il a soul can I make out 
aboard of her.” 

He had another good look, and then tucking the glass under 
his arm went below. 

In about three minutes’ time he returned, followed by a 
small, stout man with a good-humored face, and a grave, mid- 
dle-aged gentleman with a long, black beard. 

‘ ‘ There, sir ; there she is yonder ! ” said Mr. Anderson, 
incapable of seeing her with his naked eye, but concluding 
that she must still be where he. had at first sighted her, and 
willing to obtain the credit of a good sight by a simple device. 

‘‘ I see something black,” said the grave gentleman. 

“ Give us the glass ! ” exclaimed the short man, who was the 
skipper, and applied the telescope to his eye. ‘ ‘ It is certainly 
a boat,” he observed, after a bit; “but I don’t see anybody 
moving in her. What’s that black thing at the mast-head ? Is 
it a signal ? ” 

He turned to the man at the wheel : “ Starboard your helm. 

Mr. Anderson, trim the yards. Yonder may be some perishing 
human beings.” 

The whisper soon went through the vessel that there was a 
boat in sight ; the watch below turned out of their hammocks 
and came on deck, and soon the forecastle w^as lively with a 
crowd of hands gazing earnestly at the boat, which the altera- 
tion in the bark’s course now made distinguiishable, and specu- 
lating as to the people who were on board of her. 

“She looks tome like a ship’s quarter-boat,” said the 
skipper, with his eye to the glass. ‘ ‘ The sheet of the sail is 
to windward, and she’s driving bodily to leeward. What 
in the name of conscience is the meaning of that black flag at 
the mast-head ? ” 

They neared her rapidly, but were puzzled to discover no 
living thing stirring in her ; for though it w^as perfectly true 
that the sail had not been dipped, she had all the appearance 
of being manned. The water was so calm that the bark was 
able to run almost along-side the boat. There was a rush to 
the vessel’s side, and then, as the boat was passed at a distance 


THE TENTH DAY. 


117 


of forty or fifty feet, cries rose from the forecastle, There’s a 
man in the stern-sheets ! ” 

‘ ‘ Do yon see him, sir, lying with his head under the after- 
most thwart ? ” 

“ There’s two of them ! See there — hard agin’ the mast ! ” 

The boat dropped astern and revealed her interior to the 
Xoeople aft. 

‘ ‘ My God ! Two corpses in her ! ” cried the second mate. 

‘ ‘ Man the starboard fore-braces ! ” shonted the skipper. 
‘ ‘ Starboard yoiir helm ! ” 

The wheel flew round ; the port fore-braces were let go, and 
the main-yards backed. The vessel’s way was stopped, and a 
dozen hands came aft to lower away the port quarter-boat. In 
jumped four men, the second mate at the tiller. ^ ‘ Lower 
away ! ” Down sank the boat, soused upon the water, the 
blocks were unhooked, out flew the oars. 

In a few minutes the boat was along-side the coflin with the 
black flag at her mast-head. The men grabbed her gunwale, 
and stood up to look in. 

God in heaven, what a scene ! 

Holdsworth lay on his back, his legs bent double under 
him, his arms stretched out, and his ghastly face upturned 
directly under a thwart. Johnson lay in a heap near the mast, 
and they thought him a'j first a ])undle of clothes, until they 
caught sight of his hair and the fingers of one hand. His face 
was hidden, but Holdsworth looked a gray and famished skele- 
ton, with God’s signal of humanity eaten by suffering out of 
his face ; his wrists, like white sticks, covered with sores, one 
foot naked, and the skin of that and of his face of the com- 
l^lexion and aspect of old parchment. 

Crumbling fragments of salted biscuit were scattered on one 
of the seats. Aft was the open locker half filled with water, 
colored like pea-soup by the ship’s bread that was soaked and 
partially dissolved in it. In the bows were the empty kegs, 
with the bungs out ; and as the boat swayed to and fro to the 
movements of the small waves with which the wind had 
crisped the sea, these kegs rolled against each other with hol- 
low sounds. 


118 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


The dry, baked appearance of the boat, the fragments of ' 
biscuit, the empty kegs, and the skeleton men, formed a 
spectacle of horror and extreme misery such as the wildest 
imagination could not realize without memory and experience 
to help it. Nor in this picture of pure ghastliness w^as the 
least ghastly item the black shawl, which fluttered its sable 
folds at the mast-head, and to the sailors typified, as no other 
image could, the character and quality of the horror they 
contemplated. 

“ Can they be dead ? ” gasped one of the sailors, whose white 
face showed him almost overcome. 

‘‘Mr. Anderson,” came a voice from the bark’s quarter- 
deck, “ take the boat in tow and bring her along-side.” 

They made the painter fast to their stern, lowered her sail, 
and started, with their grim burden gliding after them. The 
voices of the men overhanging the vessel’s bulwarks rose in a 
low, deep hum when the boat was near enough to enable them 
to see its contents again. The port gangway was unshipped, 
and some hands stood by with lines to hoist the bodies in- 
board. 

‘ ‘ Do they live ? ” called out the skipper. 

“ They both seem dead, sir,” answered Anderson. 

The boat was now brought right under the gangway, and 
the top of her masts being level with the bulwarks, submitted 
the shawl to the close scrutiny of the sailors. They examined 
it with awe and curiosity. 

“ It isn’t bunting,” said one. 

‘ ‘ It looks like bunting, too ! ” exclaimed another. 

“ See how it’s rigged up ! ” observed a third ; “ hitched on 
anyways. ” 

“If it ain’t a woman’s dress tore in two I give it up,” said a 
fourth ; ‘ ‘ though there ain’t no woman in the boat, as I can 
make out.” 

By this time they were slinging Johnson under the arms and 
around the middle, ready to be hoisted over the gangway. 
Now that he was exposed, he made a more gaunt and sicken- 
ing object than Holdsw^orth. He was an image of famine — of 
manhood killed by suffering — a picture such as the memory 


THE TENTH DAY, 


119 


would retain when years had impaired its powers and driven all 
other vivid impressions from it. The men fell back as the 
piteous object was reverently raised over the vessel’s side and 
placed upon a sail near the main-hatchway. Then followed the 
form of Holdsworth. 

The captain and the gentleman with the long beard ap- 
proached the two bodies. 

‘ ‘ Can you tell me if there’s any life in them, Mr. Sherman ? ” 
said the captain. 

Mr. Sherman knelt and examined the two faces. The sea- 
men pressed eagerly around to listen. The elements of the 
picturesque and the tragical entered so deeply into the scene 
as to make it extraordinarily impressive — the brown and rugged 
features of the sailors ; the grave figure kneeling ; the two 
bodies on their backs resembling skeletons poorly disguised 
by a rude imitation of human skin ; the black shawl streaming 
along-side symbolizing a story of cruel, lingering, horrible 
death ; above, the white sails of the vessel, and over all a 
beaming sky and a joyous sun ! And add the mysteriousness 
of these famished and motionless visitants — their name, their 
country, their story unknown — their white lips sealed ! 

‘‘ What do you think? ” asked the captain. 

“This man,” answered Mr. Sherman, indicating Johnson, 
“ is certainly dead ; and in my opinion ” 

But at that moment the feeblest of feeble tremors passed 
through Holdsworth. 

“ Quick ! ” cried Mr. Sherman, springing to his feet. “ This 
man lives ; they may both be alive ! Have them taken below, 
Captain Duff ! Quick, sir ! every moment is precious ! ” 

His excitement was contagious. The captain bellowed for 
the steward. Others seized upon the bodies and hurried aft 
with them. The murmur of many voices rose and swelled into 
a hubbub. 

“ Aft here to the davits, and hoist the boat up ! ” sang out 
the second mate ; who, while this w^as doing, went below to 
take instructions as to the other boat, and returned with orders 
to get it inboard. 

The curiosity of the men to handle and examine this boat 


120 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


was so great that, when the order was given for some hands to 
get into her, the whole ship’s company made a rush to the 
gangway. But this tumult was soon quelled by the help of a 
few Scotch curses. The boat was hauled round to the star- 
board side, and tackles rigged on to the fore and main yard- 
arms. Up came the boat cheerily, with her mast unshipped, 
and was lashed athwart ships just before the main-hatchway. 
The vessel’s yards were then trimmed, and away she slipped 
through the water. 

The hands could not be got away from the boat. Had sho 
been the fossilized remnant of some antediluvian Armada, she 
could not have been examined by the men with more intense 
and breathless curiosity. There was no name on her, no clew 
of any kind to tell the ship she had belonged to, where she 
was built, what port she hailed from. There was, indeed, the 
word “London,” together with ^ome figures branded upon 
the kegs ; but this indicated nothing. They dragged the soak- 
ing bags of biscuit out of the locker, where they also found 
the fragments of the rum-bottles ; and deep and numerous 
were the ejaculations these simple things called forth from the 
sailors, who gathered a story from them of which my hand is 
powerless to impart the thrilling pathos to my unvarnished 
version. 

“See here ! ” said a man, shaking the kegs ; “not a drain of 
water in them ! ” 

“ Here’s a boot with a piece cut clean out from the top of 
it,” said another. 

“ Some one has tried to make food out o’ that ! ” said an old 
salt, shaking a quantity of ringlets. ‘ ‘ I’ve heerd tell of worse 
stuff nor boots being eat by castaway men ! ” 

The fragments of dried biscuit were passed around and ex- 
amined with wondering attention. The sails, the oars, the 
gratings — all came in for their share of closest and absorbed 
scrutiny. But the object that most excited speculation was 
the poor widow’s shawl, which, having been drenched and 
dried, and drenched and dried again, had become rotten, 
was full of holes, and as much resembled a shawl as a waist- 
coat. 


THE TENTH DAY. 


121 


‘‘ If this ain’t a curio I should like to know what is ! ” said a 
seaman. 

“ It’s a bit of a gownd, that’s what / say it is ! ” exclaimed 
another, authoritatively. “ Think I can’t tell what a woman’s 
dress is like?” 

“ My notion is,” said an old man, standing aloof, ‘‘ that there 
ain’t nothing mortal about it at all, but that it’s just a bit of 
bunting hoisted by Death to let the people as was in the boat 
know who their proper skipper was. I hope nobody means to 
bring it into the forecastle. I’ll not go anigh it for one.” 

“ Bring that thing aft here ! ” called Anderson ; “ and turn 
to there and get about your work.” 

The men dispersed, and the watch below rolled into the 
forecastle, talking under then.’ breaths, and making each other 
miserable with horrid legends of fire, disease, drowning, and 
starvation. 

The night came. The Jessie Maxwell was heeling over to a 
spanking breeze, and in her cabin the lamp w^as lighted, and 
Captain Duff and his chief officer, an Orkney Islander named 
Banks, a huge, rough, shaggy, honest-looking being, as like a 
Newfoundland dog as it is possible for a man to be, sat, each 
with a big glass of whiskey and water at his elbow, smoking 
l^ipes. 

Here was a very different interior from what the Meteor had 
presented. The cabin was about twenty feet long and six feet 
high, with a broad skylight overhead, and half a dozen sleep- 
ing berths around. No gilt and cream color, nor polished 
panels, nor Brussels carpets, nor the hundred elegancies of 
decoration and furniture that made the Meteor's cuddy as 
pretty as a drawing-room, were to be found ; but solid snuff- 
colored doors, mth stout hair-cushioned sofas on either side 
the table that travelled up and down a couple of portly 
stanchions, so that, when it was not wanted, it could be stowed 
out of the road. But how suggestive every plank and beam 
that met the eye of strength and durability ! Here was a ves- 
sel fit to trade in any seas, well manned, with a snugly stowed 
cargo, not a quarter of a ton in excess of what she ought to 


122 


JOHN HOLDSWOBTH, CHIEF MATE. 


carry, commanded by a shrewd and able seaman out of Glas- 
gow, and by two mates as competent as himself. 

The steam from the toddy mingled the fragrance of lemon 
and honest Glenlivet with the more defined aroma of cavendish 
tobacco. The captain sat on one sofa and Banks on the other ; 
and they smoked and sipped, and looked steadfastly on one 
another, as if time were altogether too j)recious to be wasted 
in conversation, which must oblige them to devote their lips 
to other purposes than the pipe-stem and the tumbler. 

‘‘I think I did well to get that boat inboard,” said the 
skipper, presently ; “a boat’s a boat.” 

There was no controverting this position ; so Mr. Banks ac- 
quiesced with a nod, which he executed like Jove, in a cloud. 

‘‘ Do you remember the time. Banks,” observed the skipper, 
after a long pause, “when little Angus McKay spun us that 
yarn in the Baiinockhurn about* his falling in with a ship’s 
long-boat off the Oax)e of Good Hope, with a nigger boy and 
three sheep aboard of her ? ” 

Mr. Banks, after deep deliberation, replied that he minded 
the story week 

“ A verra curious circumstance,” continued the skipper, “ if 
it wasn’t a lee ! ” 

Another pause, during which tlie two men sucked their 
pipes, never remitting their steadfast gaze at each other, un- 
less to turn their eyes upon the tumblers before raising them 
to their lips. 

“Mr. Sherman seems to know what he is about,” said Cap- 
tain Duff. “ He has a fund of humanity in his bosom, and I 
like to reflect, sir, on his sitting by the poor de’il’s bed watch- 
ing by him as though he were his ain son.” 

Nothing could have been more apropos than this remark, if 
it were designed to reach the ear of the gentleman referred to ; 
for, as the captain spoke, one of the snuff- colored doors was 
opened, and Mr. Sherman came out. 

“ Hoo’s the patient ? ” asked the captain. 

^ ‘ He has his senses, though there is such a bewildered look 
on his face as I don’t think 1 ever saw on the human coun- 
tenance,” replied Mr. Sherman, seating himself near the 


THE TENTH DAY, 


123 


skipper, and looking about for a tumbler ; whereat Mr. Banks 
called in a hurricane-note for “ Atam,” meaning Adam. A 
small, red-headed man emerged from somewhere and placed 
the materials for a glass of whiskey toddy before Mr. Sher- 
man. 

“Ech! ” ejaculated the skipper, “ I dare say he is puzzled. 
So would I be if my last memory left me starving in an open 
boat and my next one found me warm in bed with the flavor 
of old Nantz brandy in my inside.” 

‘‘T have asked him no questions,” continued Mr. Sherman. 
“ I know enough of doctoring to understand that his life may 
depend upon rest and silence.” 

“ My word, sir, you are a very gude-hearted man ! ” exclaimed 
the skipper; “and if ever I am shipwrecked, may it be my 
luck to fall into just such hands as yours. Your health, sir.” 

Saying which, he half emptied his tumbler, a performance 
that made his merry eyes glisten with delight. 

“ And the other man is ted ? ” said Mr. Banks. 

“ Quite dead, poor soul ! Did you ever see anything more 
heart-rending than his body, caiDtain? Mere skin and bone, 
and, oh, sir, the expression of his face ! ” exclaimed Mr. Sher- 
man, holding his hands over his eyes a moment. 

‘ ‘ Thirst is an awfu’ thing, ” said the skipper, glancing at his 
tumbler. 

“And so is hunger,” observed Mr. Banks, who looked as 
though a whole ox might hardly serve him for a meal. 

“ I Expect, when the other xooor fellow is capable of speak- 
ing, that we shall hear a terrible tale,” said Mr. Sherman. 
“It is very providential that my slight knowledge of medicine 
should qualify me to deal with him. The greatest care is re- 
quired in treating persons nearly dead of starvation. I have 
fed him so far in spoonfuls only. It is my intention to remain 
with him through the night. ITl borrow one of your easy- 
chairs, captain, which will serve me very well for a bed.” 

“ Certainly. I am sleeping close at hand, and if you want 
me, just give my cot a shove, and I’ll be out of it before you 
can tell which side I droj) from.” 

This settled, the cajptain mixed himself another tumbler of 


124 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


spirits, refilled his pipe, and entered into speculations as to 
Holdswortli’s nationality, the length of time he had been in 
the boat, the probable longitude and latitude in which the 
ship had taken fire or foundered, with many other matters, all 
of which he relieved with long pauses, and a variety of thought- 
ful putfs and attentive glances at the light through the medium 
of his tumbler. Presently four bells — ten o’clock — struck, 
which made Mr. Banks rise from his seat, wish his companions 
“Coot-night,” and withdraw to his cabin to get a couple of 
hours’ sleep before his watch came on. The others remained 
chatting for half an hour, and then the skipper went on deck 
to have a look around before turning in for the night. 


CHAPTEE XIV. 
holdswoeth’s kecoveey. 

The cabin in which Holdsworth lay was a spare one, next the 
captain’s. It was lighted by an oblong piece of frosted glass 
let into the deck overhead, and by a port-hole which was a 
standing and comfortable illustration of the immense thickness 
of the timbers that separated the inmate from the sea. There 
was a square of cocoa-nut matting on the deck to tread on ; up 
in the corner an immovable wash-stand, containing a pewter 
basin ; a row of pegs against the door, and a mahogany bunk. 

In this bunk lay Holdsworth, and at the hour of which I am 
now writing, Mr. Sherman sat beside him in an easy-chair, his 
legs up and his head back, in a deep sleep. From the centre 
of a beam hung a small oil-lamp, the frame carefully protected 
by wire net-work ; and the light diffused by this lamp was 
clear enough to exhibit Holdsworth’s face distinctly. 

He, too, w^as asleep, if sleep that can be called which, plung- 
ing the senses into unconsciousness, yet leaves pain and misery 
to play their active part upon the darkened stage of the mind. 
Of his youth, of his beauty, I might almost say of his very 


I10LD8W0RT1P8 RECOVERY. 


125 


manhood — such as was wont to be suggested by the open, 
brave, and winning expression of his face — not a trace was 
left. The spoliation of suffering had been so complete that 
the bare wreck of the noble temple it had ruined was all that 
remained. Now, even more completely than in hi^ waking 
hours, might we master the full extent of the cruel transform- 
ation that had been wrought, since the candor of sleep was on 
the slumberer, and the self-consciousness that masks the 
subtle facial truths inactive. His hair, formerly dark and lux- 
uriant, was thinned about the forehead, was tangled and coarse, 
and mixed with gray and white. The protrusion of the cheek- 
bones formed a conspicuous feature ; under them the flesh fell 
into a hollow, and as much of it as the bristly mustache and 
whiskers suffered to be seen was puckered and dried up like 
the rind of an old winter apple. The underlip was enlarged, 
and entirely altered the remembered aspect of the mouth. The 
eyebrows drooped where they had formerly arched, and the 
hair of them near the temples had fallen off. Time might, 
perhaps, efface some of these disfigurements deep graven by 
the stylet of pain ; but no man could have looked upon that 
sleeping face without a conviction of the permanency of muoh 
that he beheld. 

He slept ; but though his slumber was deep, his movements 
were so restless, convulsive, and feverish that it seemed every 
moment as if he must start up. 

Once during the night the ship’s bell soundings even awak- 
ened him, and he opened his eyes and raised his head, but soon 
let it fall again. Then it was during this short interval of 
wakefulness that the bewildered look of w’hich Mr. Sherman 
had spoken might have been j)erceived ; and it lingered for 
some minutes on his face after he had dropped asleep once 
more. 

Several times during the night the kind-hearted man who 
watched by the poor fellow’s side rose from his chair and 
sciTitinized him anxiously ; and once Mr. Banks popped his 
shaggy head in to ask how the sufferer did, but found both 
patient and doctor asleep. 

The morning crept over the sky, and turned the port-hole 


126 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE, 


and the piece of deck -glass white ; and at six o’clock Mr. Sher- 
man woke, and crept quietly to his cabin to refresh himself 
with a plunge in cold water ; then went on deck, where he 
found the caj)tain smoking a cigar, his feet in galoches, and 
the hands washing down. A sparkling, genial morning, with 
a warm breeze from the west, the bark in full sail, and the 
green seas caressing her bows, and leaping back from their 
keen salute in avalanches of foam. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Sherman,” said the skipper. “ This is 
the weather, eh, sir ? Out of the Doldrums by Tuesday week, 
I ho]3e. How’s your patient ? ” 

‘‘Sleeping soundly. He has passed a good night. If he 
can only get over the next few days, the tropical sun will set 
him to rights.” 

‘ ‘ Is he awake now ? ” 

“ I think not. But we’ll go and see if you like.” 

The captain threw away his cigar and follov^^ed Mr. Sherman 
below, not, however, before casting a look above and around, 
and singing out to the man at the wheel to “ keep her at that.” 

Opening the cabin-door, they crept to the bunk and stood 
looking at the sleeiring man, who, aroused, perhaps, by the 
magnetic influence of four eyes upon him, started and stared 
up at them from his pillow. 

Captain Dufl‘ drew back a step, scared a little by the wild 
gaze that Holdsworth fixed upon him, and which was made in 
some measure repellent by his gaunt and wasted face, and by 
the pitiable expression of bewilderment that passed slowly 
into it, and made it almost as meaningless as an idiot’s. 

“How do you feel, my poor fellow? ” asked Mr. Sherman ; 
“ stronger, I hope ? ” 

Holdsworth made no answer, but knitted his brow with an 
air of profound pei’plexity, gazed slowly round him, then 
attentively at Mr. Sherman, then at the skipper, then at him- 
self, finally pressing his hand to his head. 

‘ ‘ How do you know he is English ? Perhaps he don’t under- 
stand you,” said Captain Duff. 

“ I heard him mutter in English before I joined you last 
night,” answered Mr. Sherman. 


HOLDSWOBTH'S RECOVERY. 127 

“Pray tell rae where I am?” said Holdsworth, in a faint 
voice. 

‘‘ That’s English ! ” exclaimed the captain, though he looked 
as if he must take a thought of it yet before he should allow 
himself to feel sure. 

“ You are among friends,” replied Mr. Sherman, softly, and 
in a voice full of sympathy ; on board a vessel called the 
Jessie Maxwell^ bound to Australia. We sighted your boat yes- 
terday morning.” 

“My boat ! ” whispered Holdsworth, with an expression on his 
face of such deep bewilderment that it was painful to behold it. 

“ Do you not remember ? ” 

^ ‘ My boat ! my boat ! ” repeated Holdsworth ; but no light 
came into his eyes to show that he apprehended the other’s 
meaning. 

“He has lost his memory,” said Mr. Sherman, aside to the 
captain. And then to Holdsworth : “Do you feel as if you 
could eat anything ? ” 

“Yes, I am hungry,” answered Holdsworth. 

“That is a good sign!” exclaimed Mr. Sherman, cheer- 
fully. “ Captain, will you stop here a few minutes while I ask 
the steward to get the soup heated ? ” 

The skipper being left- alone, stationed himself near the 
door, and watched Holdsworth with mixed emotions. Brave 
to foolhardiness in a gale of wind, on a lee-shore, in confront- 
ing a mutinous crew, in dealing with the severest of maiine 
exigencies, this little gentleman in some trivial matters W'as as 
timorous as a mouse, and would have made his escape over- 
board rather than be grasped by Holdsworth, who, if he were 
not the dissembled madman his ragged, withered face sug- 
gested him to be, was still hedged about with enough of 
mysterious and secret horror to make him awful in the practi- 
cal little Scotchman’s eyes. 

Meanwhile, Holdsworth rested upon his pillow, casting eager 
and restless glances about the cabin and at the skipper, and 
battling with an oblivion of the past as thick and as impenetra- 
ble as that mystery of being which the infant emerges from at 
its birth. 


128 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


“ Tell, me, sir, who I am — where I have been taken from ! ” 
he exclaimed, presently, looking with imploring eyes at the 
skipper. 

‘‘ Indeed, my man, I can’t tell yon who yon are,” replied the 
captain, wishing that Mr. Sherman wonld retnrn, or that a 
squall wonld give him an excnse to withdraw. “ All that I 
know is we fonnd yon in a boat, and picked yon np, and that 
the gentleman who has jnst gone ont saved yonr life.” 

“Strange ! ” mnttered Holdsworth. “I remember nothing.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, it will all come if yon will give it time. Memory often 
leaves people after a bad illness, bnt returns again with the 
strength. Ech ! ” he cried, struck, as thongh for the first 
time, by the poor creatnre’s lean and hollow face. ‘ ‘ Bnt yon 
have kenn’d some awfn’ times, man, since ye last stood npon 
honest shipboard. Sailoring, if yon are a sailor, is a poor 
look ont when it comes to wanting bread and water.” 

The door opened and Mr. Sherman came in, followed by the 
steward bearing a dish of sonp and some mild brandy-and- 
water, with which Mr. Sherman proceeded to feed Holdsworth. 
When as mnch of the sonp as was thonght good had been ad- 
ministered, Mr. Sherman bade his patient tnrn his back to the 
light and get some sleep. 

“I will, sir ; thank yon for yonr kindness,” retnrned Holds- 
worth, with affecting docility. “Bnt first, vdll yon help me 
— will yon help me to recall something — anything — to give my 
mind rest ? I can see nothing for the darkness that is over 
me.” 

“ I have told him that his memory will come back with his 
strength,” said Captain Dnff. 

“ Yes, have a little patience ! ” exclaimed Mr. Sherman. 
“ We will get yon on deck in a day or two, and when yon see 
the boat we took yon from yonr memory will retnrn to yon.” 

“ Can yon not tell me my name ? ” asked Holdsworth, with 
that striking expression of painfnl anxiety yon may see on the 
face of a blind man deserted by his gnide and totally at fault. 

“We will endeavor to find it ont,” replied Mr. Sherman. 
“Come, cai)tain, onr friend mnst talk no more, or all onr trou- 
ble to get him well will be of no use.” 


HOLDSWORTH^S RECOVERY, 


129 


Holdswortli put out his hand with a smile of gratitude that 
softened and almost sweetened his miserable and skeleton-like 
face ; then turned in his bunk and closed his eyes. 

“A strange thing to happen to a man,” said the captain to 
Mr. Sherman, as they went on deck. “I never could have 
believed that the memory of a creature could go out of his 
brain like that ! ” 

‘‘We may guess the nature and magnitude of his sufferings 
by this effect,” answered Mr. Sherman. “God alone knows 
how many days he may have passed in that boat, and what 
scenes of horror he has witnessed, and what torments he has 
endured. But we must help his memory as far as we can. 
Will you allow me to go forward and examine the boat? ” 

They walked to the main-deck, where the boat was stowed. 
A little knot of men gathered around and watched their move- 
ments with interest. But, in truth, the boat was as unsugges- 
tive as a sheet of blank paper. There was no name in her ; nor 
by her build, sail, oars, shape, or anything else, was it possible 
to tell her paternity. The broken bottles and bags of bread 
that had been fished out of her locker were in her bottom, but 
no clue was to be got from them ; nothing but a story of deep- 
est tragical misery. The captain sent for the shawl that had 
been unhitched from the mast-head, and he and Mr. Sherman 
held it open between them and inspected it. Browned by the 
wet and the heat — in its frayed and tattered shape, its very 
texture modified by exposure — it was positively no more than 
a black rag. 

They returned to the after-deck, and sent the steward for the 
clothes which had been removed from the two men. Holds- 
w^orth’s pilot-coat was of good quality, and his linen also seemed 
to suggest that he held a very superior position to that of John- 
son, whose dress was a sailor’s — a brown woollen shirt, serge 
trousers, boots with high tops, and the invariable belt and 
knife. Holdsworth’s linen was marked with an “ H noth- 
ing more. They found in his pockets a watch, a clasp-knife, 
some money, and one or two other articles, which Mr. Sherman 
made into a parcel, hoping that the sight of things which would 
be familiar might help the poor fellow’s memory. 

9 


130 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘‘ It is evident,” says the skipper, “ that whatever we are .to 
learn must come from the man himself. His clothes tell ns 
nothing.” 

“ They are a sailor’s, don’t yon think? ” 

‘ ‘ Why, they are snch clothes as I or Banks might wear ; bnt 
that don’t prove that the man was a sailor. He certainly hasn’t 
a nantical cnt.” 

“ His langnage is that of an edncated man, and his linen is 
that of a gentleman. Pray God that the poor sonl’s memory 
will return. Without it he will be scarcely better off with ns 
than he was in the boat.” 

“Eh?” cried the literal skipper, “not better off with good 
meat and drink and a good bunk to lie in than when he was 
perishing of thirst, with no better blanket than the sky to 
cover him ? ” 

‘ ‘ I mean that he may have friends at home who, while his 
memory remains torpid, must be as dead to him and he to 
them as if he had remained in his open boat.” 

“Yes, I see your idea, sir,” replied the skipper. “And now 
about the other puir creature. We must buiy him tliis morn- 
ing. He is dead, you say ? ” 

“We will g*^o and look at him.” 

“Why,” returned Captain Duff, shrinking, “ to tell you the 
plain truth, I am not over-fond of these girning bodies. By 
your leave, sir. I’ll hae the puir creature sewn up in canvas, 
and if you’ll tak’ the reading of the burial office I shall feel 
obliged, Mr. Sherman, as I have but a verra moderate capacity 
for the delivery o’ written words.” 

At this juncture, Adam, the steward, rang the breakfast- 
bell, and the captain and Mr. Sherman went below. 

******* 

There is scarcely any ceremony more impressive than a 
burial at sea ; perhaps because nowhere does man feel his 
littleness more than when the mighty ocean surrounds him. 
The graves of the dead on shore in a measure localize their 
inmates, and our associations are fortified by the j)ower of 
referring to the departed as beings who slumber in green 
places and are at all seasons visitable. 


HOLDS WORTH'S REGO VER Y. 


131 


Blit a burial at sea is the launching of the dead into infinity. 
The sense of his extinction is absolute. He is swallowed up 
and annihilated by the universe of water, which also seems to 
overwhelm his very memory. 

At twelve o’clock the body of Johnson, sewn up in canvas, 
with a weight of lead attached to his feet, lay extended upon 
one of the gratings of the main-hatchway, one end resting on 
the bulwarks of the ship, the other upon the shoulders of two 
sailors. The crew stood round, holding their caps in their 
hands, and near the body stood Mr. Sherman reading the 
Burial Service. The mournful and impressive spectacle was 
greatly heightened by the tolling of the bell on the quarter- 
deck, which mingled its clear chimes with the words de- 
livered by Mr. Sherman. The vessel was sailing on an even 
keel, her white sails swelling, and soaring one above another, 
and forming a lovely picture against the bright blue sky. The 
water leaped and sparkled and frothed against her clean sides, 
and those swallows of the deep, the stormy petrels, chased her 
flashing wake, and gave by their presence a finishing detail to 
the whole of the sun-lighted scene. 

How unutterable the mystery hedging the motionless figure 
in the canvas shroud — his name unknown, a waif of dead 
humanity snatched for a brief moment from the imperious 
deep, whose will it was to keep him ! The seamen sent 
shrinking glances at the bundle on the grating. That he had 
suffered ; that famine had made a skeleton of him ; that thirst 
had twisted his lean face into an expression of agony which 
death was powerless to smooth out, was all they knew. 

“ We therefore commit his body to the deep^ to he turned into 
corruption ” 

The captain motioned with his hand ; the grating was tilted, 
and its burden went like a flash from the bulwarks ; the steers- 
man turned his face upon his shoulder, hearing the hollow 
plunge; but those on the main-deck stood without a move 
among them, listening to the final, comfortable, glorious 
words : 

“ LooJcmg for the resurrection of the body {when the sea shall 
give up her dead ), and the life of the world to come^ through our 


132 


JOHN HOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


Loi'd Jesus Christy who at His coming shall change our vile hody’t 
that it may he like His glorious body, according to the mighty 
working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself. 

The reader closed the book ; the grating was restored to its 
place ; and the men in twos and threes moved slowly forward, 
talking in subdued tones; and for the remainder of that day 
at least no sound of loose laughter or reckless words was to be 
heard in the forecastle. 


CHAPTER XV. 

‘‘no lilGHT, BUT BATHER DARKNESS, VISIBLE.” 

Holdsworth regained his strength slowly, and on the fourth 
day Mr. Sherman, who attended him with the gentle and un- 
obtrusive sobcitude of a perfectly benevolent mind, suggested 
that a visit on deck might freshen him up and contribute to 
his recovery. 

To this Holdsworth had been looking forward with inde- 
scribable eagerness, believing that the sight of the boat of 
which Mr. Sherman had spoken would recall his memory. 
His mind, indeed, presented a phenomenon. He remembered 
nothing — literally nothing. His actual life, as he was then living 
it, practically dated from the moment of the return of his con- 
sciousness. All that had gone before was pitch- darkness. 
That the faculty of memory was not dead was proved by his 
capacity to remember his thoughts and feelings, the offices and 
faces of those who waited on him, the food he had eaten, 
the names of those he conversed with during the time he had 
been in the cabin of the bark. But behind this was impene- 
trable gloom, every glance at which tortured him, so inexpli- 
cable was his helplessness to penetrate it. 

The mind of an infant has been likened to a sheet of blank 
paper ; we may extend the image in Holdsworth’s case by con- 
ceiving that all the characters which experience had written 
upon his mind had been effaced, and that, what new characters 
there were upon it, were the impressions only which he had 


NO LIGHT, B UT RA TILER DARKNESS, VISIBLE. 133 

received since he had been awakened from the deadly stupor 
that had conquered him a few hours before his rescue. 

Mr. Sherman was fully persuaded that Holdsworth’s memory 
would return with his strength, and had therefore forborne 
from making any experiments by questions or allusions until 
the time should come when the renewal of health would en- 
able the sufferer to sustain the fatigue of thought. He was 
impressed and touched by the poor fellow’s docility, his sweet- 
ness of temper, and his gratitude, which moved him to tears 
as often as he attempted to express it. But no clew was to be 
obtained from his conversation as to the profession he had fol- 
lowed. There was not a shoppish expletive in his language. 
He named things after the established prescription of John- 
son’s Dictionary, and might as well have been a clerk, a 
dentist, a builder, a member of Parliament, or even an attor- 
ney, as a sailor. 

The Jessie Maxwell was now in the hot latitudes. The fourth 
day was lovely, with a northeast breeze on the port quarter, 
and a burning sun, from which an awning protected the deck. 
An easy-chair was placed near the skylight for Holdsworth, 
who gained the deck leaning on Mr. Sherman’s arm. He 
halted on the last step of the companion-ladder, and clung to 
his friend with a look of mingled surprise and fear in his face. 

Had there been any one among those who watched him with 
curiosity who had known him as the chief mate of the Meteor, 
he could scarcely have contemplated this wreck of a man with- 
out deep emotion. Conceive, if you can, a face with every 
characteristic that had once contributed to give it manly 
beauty wrang out by sufferings which had left ineffaceable 
marks on every inch of the whole surface of the countenance. 
Conceive a stooped and trembling figmre, the shoulders for- 
w^ard so as to hollow the chest, and the back bowed like an 
old man’s, the arms lengthened by the abnormal attitude, and 
defeating every faint suggestion of symmetry which the eye 
might still hope to find. But this expresses nothing of the 
real transformation that had been wrought ; of that subtle 
modification of expression, of the spiritual conditions of the 
face, of changes achieved by the most delicate strokes, but 


134 


JOHN H0LD8W0BTH, CHIEF MATE. 


which were as effectual as a recasting of the whole figure and 
countenance could have been. He was dressed partly in his 
own clothes, partly in some of the clothes belonging to the 
second mate, who was a slight man, but whose garments hung 
loosely on Holds worth. He wore his own coat, which formerly 
had buttoned tight across the chest, and which his muscular 
arms had filled out as the fingers a glove ; and he could now 
have buttoned it nearly twice around him. The ring that he 
had worn on his left hand had slipped from his skeleton finger 
long ago, when he had been splashing the sea- water over his 
face in vain endeavor to quench the burning agony in his head 
and throat. He might have worn Dolly’s wedding-ring on his 
middle-finger now, for his hands were, indeed, scarcely more 
than bone. 

Mr. Sherman eyed him anxiously as he stood tottering at the 
companion-hatchway. It seemed as if the long-desired revela- 
tion had come to the suffering man, and that he could now 
remember. 

“Look about you,” he said, “and tell me if there is any- 
thing you see that recalls old impressions.” 

“ I see nothing that does this,” replied Holdsworth, in a low 
voice. ‘ ‘ Where is the boat I was taken from ? ” 

“ On the main-deck yonder.” 

“ I should like to see her,” said Holdsworth, eagerly. “ One 
idea may light up all.” 

They walked slowly forward. Here and there a seaman 
repairing a sail, or working in the lower shrouds, or doing one 
of the endless jobs of splicing, whipping, tarring, cleaning, 
which are so many conditions of the maritime life, looked at 
Holdsworth earnestly, but never intrusively ; and when he was 
at the boat some of the hands came up to him with a spokes- 
man, a middle-aged sailor in ear-rings, who said, 

“ Beg pardon, sir, but all hands wishes to say as they’re 
werry glad to see you up and doing ; and if there’s e’er a thing 
any man among us can do in helping to make you comfortable 
while you’re with us, they’ll do it and welcome, and no liberty 
is intended.” 

“Thank you, and God bless you!” answered Holdsworth, 


NO LIGHT, BUT BATHER DARKNESS, VISIBLE. 135 

greatly moved by this speech, and with an expression on his 
face that could hardly fail to let the honest seamen know that 
their good-will was not the less appreciated because it pro- 
voked no lengthened reply. The men retired, saying among 
themselves that ‘ ‘ though the gentleman warn’t a sailor, he 
ought to be one ; and though he was nothing but a skeleting, 
he had as honest a face on him as ever they seed.” 

“ This is the boat,” said Mr. Sherman. 

Holdsworth steadied himself by holding on to the gunwale 
and looked into it. The bags of bread lay under the aftermost 
thwart ; there was the open locker which the sea had filled 
with water ; there were the empty kegs, whose hollow rollings, 
as the boat had swayed to and fro, had formed such suggestive 
notes of torture as one might think would nevermore depart 
from the ear that had received the echo. If there were impres- 
sions like red-hot brands to sear the mind with burning tran- 
scripts of the ugly, agonizing facts they counterfeited, one, if 
any of them, would surely be the impression conveyed by the 
scenes of which the interior of the boat had been the theatre. 
Here the widow had died with her arm hanging over the side ; 
yonder the general had expired, pointing to the phantom of his 
native town, which dying memory had evoked from the air ; 
from that spot the actor had leaped ; and on that seat the boy 
had died, holding out his hands to the sinking sun. The little 
arena should have been vital with memory, so small was the 
space in which infinite human misery had been packed. But 
to Holdsworth it conveyed no ideas. Not the faintest illumina- 
tion entered his face in surveying it. To Mr. Sherman it was 
a thousand-fold more significant than to Holdsworth, who was 
the chief actor, in the heart-breaking tragedy that had been 
enacted in it. Yet he knew that it ought to have an interest for 
him ; and he stood clutching and staring at it with a frowning 
forehead, wrestling wildly with his mind, in which the corpse 
of memory lay deep and hidden. 

After a long interval, he passed his hand across his eyes and 
turned to Mr. Sherman. 

“ It will not come,” he said. 

Mr. Sherman was both disappointed and astonished ; disap- 


136 


JOHN HOLDSWOUTH, CHIEF MATE. 


pointed by the fruitless result of an inspection, the good effect 
of which he had counted upon, and astonished by this phenome- 
non of the utter extinction of the most life-giving faculty of the 
mind. 

He drew him to the boat again and said, 

“See, now; you were found there, lying under that seat, 
and beside the mast lay another man, a dark-faced man, dressed 
in sailor’s clothes. Do you remember ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Look at those bags of biscuits. They were found soaking 
in the locker. Those bags contained all the food you had on 
board. You must have suffered horribly from the dread of 
starvation when you found the biscuit spoiled by the salt- 
water. Recall your thoughts on making the discovery. Can 
you ? ” 

“No,” replied Holdsworth, pressing his hand to his head. 

“ There was a black flag — a piece of stuff, a portion of a 
woman’s dress it seemed — fastened to the mast-head. Do you 
remember ? ” 

Holdsworth said “ No.” 

“ Had you a woman with you ? ” 

“ I cannot tell.” 

“ See if you can go farther back. Try to recollect where 
your ship sailed from. Was it England ? ” 

‘ ‘ England ? Yes — I know England — but I do not remember 
if I came from England,” Holdsworth replied, with profound 
anxiety in his eyes. 

“ Come ! you remember England. Did you sail from Liver- 
pool?” 

“ I know Liverpool ! ” he exclaimed, quickly. 

“ And London ? ” 

“Yes, yes!” 

“ And what was the name of your ship ? ” 

Holdsworth thought and thought without avail. 

Herein was the deception that misled Mr. Sherman. Holds- 
worth could perfectly remember familiar names, but they had 
to be pronounced in his hearing before he could recall them. 
In like manner he could tell the names and discourse of the 


NO LIGHT, BUT BATHER DARKNESS, VISIBLE. 137 


things he beheld, because he saw them. Had Johnson lived, he 
would have known and called him Johnson. Had Mr. Sher- 
man spoken of Dolly, of Southbourne, of the London Docks, of 
the Meteor, of any of the incidents connected mth the Meteor's 
loss, Holdsworth would have remembered exactly as much as 
he heard. But, in the absence of suggestion, his memory was 
powerless — absolutely helpless — to generate independent con- 
clusions as to the impressions his mind had received previous 
to his rescue. 

The real miracle lay in this contradiction— in the death of 
memory, dating up to the moment of the swoon in the boat; 
in its resurrection to health and vigor, dating fj'om the moment 
of his recovery. 

He returned to the chair that had been placed for him near 
the skylight, and Mr. Sherman, still not despairing of arousing 
this dormant faculty, went below and returned with the parcel 
of things that had been taken from Holdsworth’s pockets. 
These were given him one by one, but he handled them with- 
out recognition. 

“ But you know their names ? ” said Mr. Sherman. 

‘‘Yes. This is a knife. This is a watch.” 

“ They are yours ; found in your pockets.” 

His hand trembled, and he gazed at them with devouring 
eyes ; but no other idea was conveyed to him by Mr. Sher- 
man’s assurance than the bare fact that they were his property. 
He could not remember having purchased or owned them. 

“ It’s only a question of time, my man,” said Captain Duff, 
who stood by, looking on at these strange ineffectual experi- 
ments. 

No mere effort of imagination can do justice to Holdsworth’s 
suffering. The feeling that he ought to remember, coupled 
with his incapacity and the sense of the past, holding, perhaps, 
memories of vital consequence to him to recall, created a men- 
tal torture more afflicting than it is in the power of any man 
who has not suffered in this way to conceive. Loss of memory, 
even in trifling matters, always partakes of the nature of pain. 
The fruitless effort to recall a name, a date, begets uneasiness, 
and is soon converted into a positive torment. But figure 


138 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


your mind haunted with a sense of the significance of the past, 
not one faintest glimpse of which is permitted to you to obtain. 
Figure yourself groping in a dense gloom, saying ‘ ‘ There are 
things here which I feel are precious to me, w^hich are of deep 
consequence to my happiness and to the happiness of others, 
but I cannot recall their names or their aspect ! ” and mean- 
while the subtlest of your instincts is driving you mad with 
importunities to prosecute your search and lay the store of 
memory open to the light ! This is worse than blindness ; it 
is death in life. The years that you have lived are cut away 
from your existence, and with them all the precious accumu- 
lations of experience — love, sorrow, and thought itself. God 
preserve us all from such an affliction. 


CHAPTEE XVI. 

SAILOBS’ SYMPATHY. 

The Jessie Maxwell was bound for Sydney, New South Wales, 
freighted with what is called a general cargo — pianos, nails, 
scents, and such matters. She carried only one passenger, Mr. 
Sherman, whose cabin was given him as a favor by Captain 
Duff, who partly owned the bark, and who had a great friend- 
ship for the gentleman, whose house he visited in Sydney. Mr. 
Sherman was a merchant, doing business in wool, tallow, and 
other Australian exports, and had been visiting London and 
Glasgow for agents and consignees, and also to benefit his 
health by a sea-voyage. He was one of the most humane men 
in the colony, very well-to-do, but prosperous by his own 
efforts. He had a commanding figure, a large, mild, intellec- 
tual eye, and the kindliest smile that ever graced the human 
face. The strong benevolence of his character made his man- 
ner singularly fascinating ; and before Holdsworth had known 
him a fortnight he was bound to him by a feeling of affection 
which, though it might have owed something of its depth to 


JSAILOm^ SY3IPATHY. 


139 


gratitude, must have existed in a complete form, without refer- 
ence to the great kindness that had been shown him. 

The days passed quickly. In the equatorial latitudes the 
bark was becalmed for two days ; and then a gale rose, and 
drove her into the southeast trade-winds. 

If Mr. Sherman and Captain Duff had ever felt disposed to 
believe that Holdsworth might have been a sailor, they con- 
sidered that probability entirely disposed of by his behavior 
on the first day of the gale. 

He was on deck when the wind was freshening, walking to 
and fro with Mr. Sherman, whose arm he could now do without, 
having recovered as much of his strength as it seemed likely 
he would ever get back. The wind came up in a sudden 
squall, and took the bark on the starboard beam. Her royals 
were set, but the yards, fortunately, were trimmed to receive 
the breeze. The vessel heeled over under the great weight of 
canvas, and there was some hurry among the men as they let 
go the royal and top-gallant halyards, though there was noth- 
ing in the confusion to occasion the least alarm, even in a 
passenger who had been a month at sea. But the effect of the 
squall upon Holdsworth was extraordinary. As the vessel lay 
over, he grasped Mr. Sherman’s arm with looks of terror in his 
face, and ran to windward, flinging fearful glances at the sea 
on the lee side. Mr. Sherman offered to help him to go 
below, but he declined to leave the deck, and clung to the 
weather mizzen-rigging, apparently speechless with alarm. 

As it came on to blow heavily, the men reefed the top-sails ; 
and Holdsworth literally trembled as the yards rushed down 
upon the caps, and the canvas thundered as the helmsman 
luffed to enable the hands to pick up the sails more easily. 

“My dear fi-iend,” exclaimed Mr. Sherman, soothingly, 
“ you must endeavor to control yourself. There is no danger, 
indeed. This uproar will cease presently. W e encountered 
much worse weather than this in the North Atlantic, shortly 
after leaving Glasgow.” 

“Yes, I am ashamed of my weakness ; my nerves are gone,” 
answered the poor fellow. And then, seeing the men tum- 
bling up aloft and laying out upon the yards, he covered his 


140 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


face with his hands, saying he dared not look lest he should 
see them fall. 

The ship was made snug presently ; but the sea rose, and 
now and again a shower of spray came flying over the fore- 
castle and the main- deck, which so violently agitated Holds- 
worth that he let go the rigging and made for the companion. 
He walked like a paralyzed man — his hands outstretched, and 
his head turning about on his shoulders. He gained his cabin 
and laid himself down in his bunk, exquisitely alive to his 
pusillanimity, and weeping over his incapacity to control him- 
self. 

The skipper went up to Mr. Sherman. 

‘ ‘ Our friend is no sailor. I think you can tell that, Mr. 
Sherman.” 

“No ; that is proved. The instincts of his old life, had he 
been a sailor, would have kept up his courage without respect 
of his memory. But let us bear in mind that his nervousness 
is the result of the terrible experience he has gone through. 
If illness — if fever, for instance — will rob us of our nerves, 
how much more the unspeakable agony of hunger and thirst, 
and the deadly, hopeless captivity and exposure in an open 
boat for days, and maybe for weeks ! It would drive me 
mad ! ” 

“Ay, that is verra true. Understand me, I am not speaking 
disrespectfully of the puir soul. I would only bid you ob- 
sairve by his fear that he canna hae been a tarry-breeks. The 
auld speerit would live in spite o’ his nerves, and would have 
risen to the cries of the men and the booking o’ the water. 
That’s my opeenion.” 

Thus we may learn how some opinions, delivered in sound 
earnest, are manufactured. 

Not a tarry-breeks ! 

There had never sailed out of any port in Christendom a 
finer, a more courageous sailor than Holdsworth. What would 
Captain Duff have thought of his “opeenion” had he been 
told that that same halting, crippled figure, who had hastened 
to his cabin with movements full of fear, had been, only a 
month before, an upright, handsome man, with an eye full of 


SAILORS^ SYMPATHY. 


141 


light and spirit, with nerves and skill equal to occasions which 
would have overwhelmed the honest Scotch skipper and left 
him nowhere, with a heart as gentle as a maiden’s and manly 
as Nelson’s ; always foremost in the moment of danger, with 
the voice of a trumpet to deliver unerring commands ; a leader 
in measures of which the peril made the stoutest-hearted trem- 
ble and stand still; scaling the dizzy heights of whirling 
masts and spars, to whose summits he might have beckoned in 
vain to those very seamen of the Jessie Maxwell, whose move- 
ments, now in the weakness of his crushed and broken life, he 
dared not even watch ? 

Of all sights, that of the strong and lion-hearted man smit- 
ten down by sickness, by misery, by misfortune to the feeble- 
ness of an infant, to the timidity of a girl, is surely the most 
affecting. Such a man I have seen — a sailor — entering the 
forecastle full of the courage that makes heroes of men, and 
leaving it, after two months of confinement, with nerves and 
health so shattered that he has not dared to approach the bul- 
warks of the ship for fear of falling overboard ! 

Give the full measure of your pity, kind reader, to such as 
these. There is no form of human suffering whose pathos is 
more unqualified. 

So Mr. Sherman, agreeing with Captain Duff, was confident 
that, whatever else Holdsworth might have been, he was not a 
sailor. This was, at all events, a negative discovery, which 
lopped off one of the numerous conjectures with which the 
mystery of Holdsworth’ s past was considered. Strange it was 
to talk to the poor fellow, to hear his rational language, his 
discussions, his sensible remarks, and to feel that he was 
speaking, so to say, on this side of a curtain, behind which 
were hidden all the true interests of his life. Once or twice 
he staggered Captain Duff by a nautical question, the very 
nature of which implied an intimate acquaintance with the sea ; 
but his unaffected timidity when the vessel rolled, or when the 
weather was squally, always drove the skipper back upon his 
first conclusion, and made him think that the knowledge of 
sails, ropes, yards, etc. , which Holdsworth displayed had been 
picked up by him as a passenger, or even out of books. 


142 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


However, his marine allusions were few and far between. 
His horror of the sea was remarkable, and he repeatedly 
inquired how long it w^ould be before they reached Sydney. 
Moreover, he was rendered taciturn by his ceaseless struggles 
with memory, and would pass whole hours lost in thought, 
during which, it w^as observed, no gleam ever entered his face 
to indicate his recurrence to any action, phase, or condition of 
his past. 

Often when the main-deck was clear, he would steal to the 
boat and stand contemplating her, with his hands locked and 
his brow corrugated with anxious thought. It was strange to 
see him running his eyes over her, handling the yoke-lines, 
peering into the locker, and literally groping for an inspira- 
tion. 

Once the boatswain of the vessel, a shrewd English seaman, 
who, as well as every other soul on board the bark, knew of 
Holdsworth’s total loss of memory, seeing him alone staling 
at the boat, came out of his berth and addressed him : 

“ They say, sir, that you don’t remember this boat ? ” 

“I am trying to recollect,” answered Holdsworth, looking 
at him with the expression of painful eagerness that was now 
almost a characteristic of his face. 

‘ ‘ See here, sir, when that there boat was sighted there was 
only two persons found aboard of her. You was one, and the 
other was the poor fellow we buried. Now, what I’m always 
saying to my mates is this : this here’s a ship’s quarter-boat, 
and more hands went in her than two when she put off. Now, 
sir, try and think how many there was.” 

“I remember nothing. I would to God I could ! ” 

‘‘But don’t you reck’let what your thoughts w^as when the 
bread got soaked with the salt-w^ater ? ” 

Holdsworth shook his head. 

“Here,” continued the good-natured boatswain, “might be 
the bread,” pointing to the locker. “Here,” he went on, 
pointing to the stern-sheets, ‘ ‘ might you be sitting, steering 
of her, when up comes a sea and washes over you or the chap 
that has the yokes. Now, maybe you notices this, but can 
only groan, having to keep her head well before it — putting 


SAILORS^ SYMPATHY. 


143 


you for the man as steers. But you can think, for all that ; 
and it must ha’ scared the blood out of you to guess that the 
little food that remained was all spoiled. Can’t you remem- 
ber?” 

Holdsworth, who had followed every syllable with trembling- 
anxiety, shook his head again. 

“ Many things have happened ; something tells me that,” he 
answered ; “ but I can remember nothing.” 

“ Would you like to step into the fok’sle, sir ? Perhaps you 
might see something there as will help you,” said the boat- 
swain, who was moved by Holdsworth’s hopeless reply. 

They descended through the fore-scuttle into the dim semi- 
circular abode, with huge beams across the upper deck, from 
which depended a number of hammocks, and bunks all around, 
with their edges chipped and hacked by the men, who used 
them for cutting tobacco upon ; and on the deck, sea-chests 
and bundles and pannikins and tin dishes scattered every- 
where. The gloom was scarcely irradiated by a couple of 
lamps resembling teapots with wicks in their spouts ; and the 
faces of the men glimmered over the sides of the hammocks or 
in the darkness of the bunks. Up in a corner was a group of 
men, consisting of a portion of the watch on deck, assembled 
around two sea-chests, on which were seated a couple of ol’dinary 
seamen fastened down by nails driven through the seat of their 
breeches into the lids of the chests. Their sleeves were tucked 
above the muscles of their arms, and they were deciding, by 
means of their fists, an argument which had been commenced 
half an hour before in the main-top. Being nailed very nearly 
at arm’s-length from each other, their efforts to deal each other 
blows threw them into contortions irresistibly ridiculous ; but 
the lookers-on, having probably no very lively sense of the 
absurd, stood around with grave faces, thoughtfully chewing 
tobacco, and now and then offering the combatants a friendly 
suggestion wdiere best to hit each other. Some men lay in 
hammocks directly over the heads of the pugilists, but took no 
further interest in the ^Droceedings going on under their beds 
than now and again to pop a burnt and hairy face over the 
edge of the tight canvas, and in polite and genteel terms 


144 


JOHN HOLDSWOBTH, CHIEF MATE. 


recommend the youngsters not to make too much noise if they 
didn’t want to be nailed fore and aft upon the lids of the 
chests, like bats. 

“Now, sir,” said the boatswain, advancing a few steps into 
the forecastle, but not even deigning to notice, much less 
offering to interfere between the combatants, “ see if there 
ain’t nothing here to give you an idea.” 

There should have been many things ; for the forecastle of 
a ship was as familiar to Holdsworth as any part of her ; and 
though, when he had first gone to sea, he had slept in a cabin 
near his father’s, he had spent the greater part of his time for- 
ward among the men, taking instructions from them in all 
kinds of seafaring work, and never more happy than when 
squatting on a chest, plying a marline-spike, and listening to 
the yarns of the sailors around him. 

The boatswain watched him with looks of interest, which 
faded into disappointment. 

‘ ‘ Is there nothing ? ” he asked. 

“ Nothing,” said Holdsworth, gazing blankly around him. 

“But you know those things are called hammocks?” 

“ Yes, I can tell you the names of everything that I see, but 
that don’t help me.” 

“ Well, I am blowed ! ” muttered the boatswain, under his 
breath ; whereupon Holdsworth, thanking him for the trouble 
he had taken, withdrew, pained by the glances and whispers 
of the men, and rendered nervous and dispirited by the smells, 
the fight in the corner, and the strong movement of the ship, 
felt here more than anywhere else. 


CHAPTEE XVII. 

A PRESENTATION. 

Not knowing how to address or speak to Holdsworth, the 
skipper and Mr. Sherman and the others called him Mr. H., 
that letter being all they knew of his name. 

He was treated by captain and officers with great kind 


A PRESENTATION. 


145 


ness, shared their table, and was even furnished by them with 
clothes, of which, you may conceive, he stood very much in 
need. 

None of them could doubt that he had friends, that he held 
a position, that he might have money ; and they waited day 
after day for the return of his memory, which was to solve the 
mystery his silence wrought, and set him square with the 
world again. Indeed, his utter incapacity to recall the smallest 
incident connected with his past was almost provoking, despite 
its pathos. Captain Duff wanted to know the name of the ves- 
sel that had been wrecked, the port she hailed from, the port 
she had been bound to, her cargo, who her captain w^as. How 
astounding to this healthy little man that such plain and easy 
questions should provoke no replies. Perhaps, had he been 
kept without food and water for six or seven days, subjected to 
a long series of appalling mental tortures, exposed on the sea 
in an open boat that was scarcely visible a mile off, with Death 
the skeleton for a helmsman, he might have moderated his 
wonderment — nay, even admitted that such experiences were 
not only highly calculated to deprive a man of his memory, but 
to drive him raving mad for the remainder of his life. 

But the bark was drawing near her journey’s end, in long. 
120°. The pale outline of Van Diemen’s Land must heave in 
sight shortly away on the port bow. 

They were now in the beginning of November, and had been 
seventy-two days from Glasgow. One bright morning Holds - 
worth was seated on the skylight, with his eyes on a book that 
had been lent him, but with his mind groping, as it more or 
less always was, in the darkness that hid the past from his 
sight. There was a blind man’s look on his face when he w'as 
thus thinking that was more conclusive of the ghastly sincerity 
of his intellectual bereavement than anything that could be 
said or done. You saw by the blank expression in his eyes 
that his gaze was turned inward, and by his general air that 
the search he was making was a fruitless one. 

He, had been taken out of the boat a ghost — a gray skeleton ; 
he had picked up a little since that time, but his present 
aspect was merely a slight improvement on the forlorn image 
10 


146 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


he had presented when rescued. The familiar picture of a 
broad-shouldered, hearty, vigorous, handsome young man, 
smooth-cheeked, clear-eyed, was gone ; in its place was a 
wasted shadow, a drooping, hesitating figure, with a character- 
ization of deformity in its movements, though there was no 
positive deformity ; thin, feeble hands whitened by sickness, 
and a pale face hollowed in the eyes, and made ragged with a 
growth of black beard and mustache.* 

The change was altogether too remarkable to have been ef- 
fected by physical suffering only ; the heart had worked the 
deeper transformation — the soft, tender, womanly heart brought 
face to face with sufferings it was constrained to contemplate, 
to hearken to murmurs of agony it could not soothe nor 
silence. Consider, I pray you consider, that he had beheld 
five shocking deaths, each one accompanied by circumstances 
of unspeakable horror or misery. Stretched over a longer 
space of time, they might, by giving his heart breathing- 
spaces between, have inured it to the inevitable scenes ; but 
crowding upon him one after the other in quick succession, 
they ground his sensibility to dust ; and though he had now 
no memory whereby to renew the sufferings of those ten days, 
its blighting effect was not the less clearly visible in him, its 
operation had not been the less complete. 

While he thus sat, as lonely now in a ship full of men as 
ever he had been in the boat with Johnson dying under the 
thwart, Mr. Sherman came on deck and took a seat at his 
side. Holdsworth was so engrossed that he did not perceive 
his companion, and Mr. Sherman, unwilling to break in upon 
his thoughts, remained silent, watching him. 

Suddenly Holdsworth turned ; the blank, dead look went 
out of his eyes, and he smiled. 

“So memory still defies you?” said Mr. Sherman, kindly 


* “ Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat had done 
Their work on them by turns, and thinn’d them to 
Such things a mother had not known her son 
Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew.” 

Don Juan., Canto ii., 102. 


A PHE8ENTATI0K 


147 


and with just as much anxiety as would let his companion un- 
derstand the sincerity of the interest taken in him. 

“ Yes,” answered Holdsworth, the smile fading off his face. 
‘‘Once— once only, just now, a fancy came into my mind — I 
cannot explain its nature, or what it betokened, but it vanished 
the instant I attempted to grapple with it.” 

“Did it leave no impression — no idea whatever?” 

“None. I can compare it to nothing better than a dim 
light stealing across the wall of a dark room and disappearing.” 

Mr. Sherman was silent, but presently said, 

“ What do you propose to do when you reach Sydney ? ” 

“I have often thought of that. I must seek work and 
wait. ” 

“ Wait until your memory returns ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“The captain and I were talking about you just now, and I 
suggested that, were you to return to England, which I am 
persuaded is your native country, you might come across a 
friend who would give you your memory back at once ; or, 
failing such a friend, you might encounter some scene which 
would achieve the same end.” 

“I don’t think I could bear another long voyage just yet,” 
answered Holdsworth, glancing at the sea. “What should 
make the water so hateful to me ? Sometimes I fancy I must 
have passed many years upon it, and that it has served me 
badly.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, your dislike is easily understood. But now with re- 
gard to your prospects. Will it be wise for you to remain in 
Australia? You must have friends at home — supposing Eng- 
land to be your home. ” 

“ But how shall I find them ? ” 

“ Ay, that’s it. Much might be done if I could only dis- 
cover your name. I must make a list of all the names begin- 
ning with H. The only question is, would you know your 
name if you were to see it ? ” 

“I would try,” answered the poor fellow, humbly. 

“ Well, now. I’ll tell you what I have in my mind,” said Mr. 
Sherman, laying his hand kindly on Holdsworth’s. “ I look 


148 


JOHN HOLBSWORTII, CHIEF MATE, 


upon you as a man whom, having brought to life — for I take 
the credit of your recovery to myself — it is my proper privilege 
to support. But I shall not allow you to be dependent on 
charity. I have an office in Sydney, and you shall have a desk 
in that office, and so earn a salary that will maintain you in 
comfort. By-and-by your memory will come back. You will 
then return to England, and I shall heartily wish you God’s 
blessing, for you have suffered — yes, you have suffered very 
much — more than I, more than any of us, can conceive.” 

He broke off suddenly, his voice faltering. 

Holdsworth seized his hand. 

“ Mr. Sherman — good, kind friend— God will reward you. I 
have suffered — I — I feel it here,” pressing his hand to his head. 
‘‘ Sir, dear sir, believe me grateful ! ” 

‘ ‘ I do believe you grateful, and it pleases me to believe it, 
for it is a pleasure to serve the grateful. Well, we have settled 
that. But understand, though you will remain with me as long 
as you like, yet, at the first prompting of your memory, I 
shall exhort you to return to England, for I cannot persuade 
myself that you are not leaving relatives and friends who will 
mourn you as dead, and suffer unnecessary soitow on your 
account.” 

“ Yes — yes ! I think this sometimes ! ” cried Holdsworth, 
passionately. ‘‘ That is the haunting thought — but it may not 
be ! Oh, sir, it cannot be ! Were there dear ones belonging to 
me, could my memory forget them ? Could they be very dear 
to me and be forgotten ? ” 

Mr. Sherman drew a deep breath, and said, *‘No, I believe 
that would be impossible. If love united you to any person at 
your home, that love would be an instinct to prompt you with 
an influence that should have no reference to memory. But 
the. mind of man is a great mystery.” 

There was a short silence, and then Mr. Sherman asked, 
“ Do you ever dream ? ” 

‘‘No.” 

‘ ‘ But you may dream, though your mind cannot retain the 
impression of its dreams. Could you awaken from a dream of 
home your darkness might be made light. ” 


A PBE8ENTATI0N. 


149 


“I have thought of that,” answered Holdsworth, witli the 
air of a man who, having exhausted speculation, can find no 
inspiration in any kind of suggestion. 

“ And you have no inclination to return to England ? ” 

‘‘It cannot matter where I am while my memory remains 
dead. England ! You speak a familiar word, and I know it is 
a country, but I cannot bend my mind back to it. It gives me 
no ideas. I stretch my thoughts over the great waste of waters 
we have traversed in this ship, and find nothing more than sea 
and sky — sea and sky ! I can find no country lying beyond — 
nothing to give me thoughts of home. Oh, sir! ” he cried, 
“you cannot understand this ! How should you ? It is horri- 
ble for me to look back and see the whole of my life eclipsed 
— to see a wall of darkness reared close behind me through 
which I cannot see I What things precious, infinitely lorecious, 
to me may be hidden ! It would ease me, sir, greatly ease me, 
if God would but illuminate my mind only for a moment, that 
I might know what is lost to me. And the loneliness of it all ! 
the feeling of desolation that comes over me in my solitude I 
Mr. Sherman, consider how lonely I am ! Not a voice, not an 
echo of anything that may be dear to me, comes out of that 
darkness behind me. Who would believe that memory is life, 
and the loss of it worse than death ? ” 

He bowed his head and covered his face with his thin hands, 
and some tears trickled through his fingers. 

God help him ! Suffering had subdued that manly nature 
to the feebleness and weakness of a child, and tears, though 
there had been a time when no anguish of his own could have 
wrung such things from his eyes, now easily rose with the ex- 
pression of his feelings. 

Here Captain Duff, coming up to Mr. Sherman, interrupted 
the conversation, and Holdsworth, ashamed of the weakness he 
had no power to control, went with his slow step and shaky 
movements below. 

* ******** 
When they were within two days’ sail of Sydney, the boat- 
swain and two hands came aft to the skipper, and the boatswain, 
touching his cap, spoke as follows : 


150 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ Sir, the ship’s crew have asked me to turn to and say this 
here for them : that they werry well know that the gentleman 
who has lost his memory hasn’t any clothes, and, maybe, no 
money ; and as shipwreck’s a thing that may happen to any of 
us, and as the poor gentleman’s suffered more nor he’s allowed 
to remember, though, as my mate Bill here says, it ain’t weny 
hard to guess what he’s gone through, as there are some of the 
men for’ard who have bin shore of water in their time, and spin 
’arrowing yarns such as I never heerd the like on ; why, what 
I was a-sayin’ was this : that the ship’s company, barrin’ one, 
which is an Isle o’ Dorg’s man — but hell come over — wants to 
make up a purse o’ money for the poor gentleman ; and though 
some o’ them ain’t got much to give, leastways to spare, they’ll 
all lend a hand, and only wait to hear if you and the mates ’ll 
start the list, which ’ud be more ship-shape.” 

The boatswain delivered this speech with great hesitation — 
not from nervousness, but from a perception of the puzzling 
nature of words, which had a trick of falling athwaii: ships 
along the course of his meaning and bringing him up with a 
round turn. Having concluded, he glanced at his mates to see 
if they approved, on which they nodded a good deal of hair 
over their eyes, and then wiped their mouths with their wrists. 

“ Bight you are,” said the skipper, addressing them with his 
eyes fixed on the main-top-sail, and his hand out to motion the 
man at the wheel to keep her steady. “You can put me down 
for five pounds, and Mr. Banks and Mr. Anderson for a 
sovereign apiece. If they don’t fork out. I’ll pay for them. 
Steady, I say, steady ! Dom it, man, you’re a point off your 
course ! ” 

That evening, the weather being mild and balmy, and a 
glorious breeze right astern of the bark, Holdsworth was seated 
aft when the skipper came up to him and said : 

“The ship’s company have been making you up a purse, sir, 
as a token of their sympathy with the temporal losses you 
must have sustained by the wreck of the vessel which there 
canna be a doubt you were on board of, and with the suffering 
you endured in the boat. The bo’sun waits to know when it’ll 
be agreeable to you to receive the gift.” 


A PBESBNTATIOW, 


151 


No — no — really — the poor fellows must keep their money 
— I cannot accept it,” replied Holdsworth, greatly agitated and 
moved. 

“ Oh, you must tak’ it, sir, or they’ll think you paughty, as 
we say in Scotland. The bo’sun is waiting at the capstan yon- 
der, and the men are on tiptoe for’ard — look at the heads loup- 
ing in the fore-scuttle ! ” 

Holdsworth left his chair and went slowly to the boatswain. 
When the hands saw him draw near the capstan, they vnlggled 
out of the forecastle, out of the galley, out from behind the 
long-boat, and came slipping aft, advancing and drawing back 
fitfully, and some on tiptoe, to catch the speeches. A seaman 
somewhere aloft came hand-over-fist down a backstay, finally 
landing himself on the bulwarks, where he stood looking on. 

The skipper and Mr. Sherman and the second mate axD- 
proached ; and when the boatswain was going to speak, the cap- 
tain called, 

‘‘Draw closer, my lads. The gentleman can’t talk to you 
out of ear-shot.” 

The men, like shy school-boys, elbowed each other into a 
smaller semicircle, and stood staring and grinning over one 
another’s shoulders. 

“ All ready, sir ? ” asked the boatswain. 

“ Fire away ! ” answered the skipper. 

The boatswain took off his hat and placed it on the capstan ; 
then drew from it a handkerchief of the size of a union- jack, 
with which he dried his face and mouth ; he next fished in 
his coat pocket and produced a small canvas bag, very neatly 
sewn. This he held in his hand, and turned to Holdsworth. 

“We don’t know your name, sir, and we’re werry sorry that 
we don’t, ’cause there’s a gi-eat deal in a name when you give a 
thing, ’specially to them as has to speechify, and it helps ’em 
along like.” (“ So it dew, mate! ” from the crowd, and sev- 
eral heads nodded emphatically. ) ‘ ‘ I’m a seafarin’ man 

myself, and come from Greenwich, and had no lamin’ taught 
me when I was a boy, and so the present company will please 
hexcuse bad grammar and the likes of that, seein’ that a sea- 
farin’ man don’t want to know many "words besides those as 


152 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


consarn a ship. We’re all sailors here, if the skipper will let 
me call him a sailor — ” 

“ Ma conscience ! and what else am I ? ” cried the skipper. 

“ Well, as I was a-sayin’,” continued the boatswain, looking 
discomfited for a moment, ‘ ‘ we’re all sailors here, barrin’ you, 
sir, and Mr. Sherman, and it’s only men as go to sea as can 
know what an awful thing a shipwreck is, and what a bad look- 
out thirst and hunger is, and the feelings that overcome a man 
when he is in a open boat miles away from the shore. We 
reckon that you passed through a deal o’ sufferin’ ; and being 
sailors, it’s only right and proper that we should all of us, 
from the skipper down, let you know by a better sign than 
mere talk, which don’t go far, though it may be werry com- 
fortin’ sometimes, when you can understand what’s said to you 
— I say that we want to let you know how sorry we are for you, 
and how werry grateful we are that we belong to the wessel 
that picked you up ; and so, sir ” (here he handed the bag to 
Holdsworth), “all hands clubbed together to make up this 
trifle o’ money jist to buy you a few things when you get 
ashore ; and I’m proud to say there ain’t a man among us, 
though I did think one was goin’ to back out, that hasn’t given 
something — Beggin’ your parding a moment ; them scraps o’ 
paper in the purse are borders wrote by me, and signed by the 
men as hasn’t got ready money about ’em, for the captain to 
pay you the valley in silver which they bear in figures ; and 
that money to be deducted from their wages. That’s all, I 
think, sir,” he concluded, looking at the skipper. 

A voice called out, “ Three cheers for the gentleman ! ” and 
forth burst a roar from the iron throats of the men that made 
the decks ring again. 

Holdsworth was unmanned, and looked downward, strug- 
gling with his emotion. But, glancing up and catching sight 
of the swarm of rc)ugh, kindly faces around him, he broke away, 
so to speak, from his agitation, and answered as follows : 

“ If it had pleased God to leave me my memory, I believe I 
could have done my gratitude more justice, though I couldn’t 
have felt more grateful. For, sometimes, when I have 
watched you at wo;:k, it has come over me, not as a conviction 


A PRESENTATION. 


153 


— no ! I wish it had ; but as a mere fancy only — that I, too, 
have been a sailor ; and if that be so, then I can understand 
why your kindness does not overcome me with surprise, be- 
cause I ought to know that sailors’ hearts are the largest, the 
truest, the most manly in the world ; that there’s not a sorrow 
their purses will not fly open to relieve, and that a man, let 
him be what he will, is never so well recommended to them as 
when he is poor and broken-down and friendless. I don’t 
know how properly to thank you for your generous gift.” 
(‘‘We don’t want no thanks,” said a voice. “If there’s 
enough to rig you out and put some ’baccy in your pocket, 
that’s all we want.”) “Miserable, indeed, I shall be if my 
memory plays me false in this — if it does not suffer me to 
carry the recollection of your kindness to my death-bed. May 
God bless you, and guard you all back in safety to your 
homes ! ” 

He ceased, unable to say more. 

“ Sir,” said Captain Duff, “ we have done no more than our 
duty in all this business from beginning to end. In the name 
of all hands I return your good wishes by praying that God 
may speedily give you back your memory, and make you happy 
for the rest of your days, as a proper compensation for what 
you have gone through.” 

He shook him by the hand, and then Mr. Anderson stepped 
forward ; then came the boatswain, and then an able seaman, 
and then another able seaman — until presently Holdsworth was 
engaged in shaking hands all round, scarcely a man quitting 
the quarter-deck until a grasp had been exchanged. 

When all this hand- shaking was over, Captain Duff ordered 
rum to be served out to the men, who then returned to the 
forecastle with a sense of festivity upon them, and passed the 
rest of the second dog-watch in singing songs and dancing. 


154 


JOHN H0LD8W0UTH, CHIEF MATE. 


CHAPTEK XVIII. 

SYDNEY . 

At nine o’clock on the morning of the third day from the 
time occupied in the last chapter, a hand stationed on the look- 
out in the foretop sent a roar from the sky : 

‘ ‘ Land right ahead ! ” 

In half an hour’s time it was to be seen from the deck, a 
mere blue visibn stretching, eel-shaped, upon the horizon. 

Australia ! the great and wealthy continent of which there 
were men then living whose fathers could recall the time when 
this vast tract of land had no place in the world’s knowledge of 
the Pacific. 

Of all sensations, the first glimpse of the land towards which 
a ship has been steering for weeks and weeks, with seldom 
even so much as a passing sail to relieve the monotony of the 
ocean, is the most thrilling. The oldest seaman will desert 
his bunk or hammock to make for the forecastle and have a 
look at -the dim cloud. The pale-faced steward, seldom seen 
on deck, sneaks from his berth in the steerage, redolent of 
luke-warm soup and resonant with the ceaseless clattering of 
crockery, to peer over the bulwarks at the far-off coast. If 
there be passengers on board, you are sensible of an uneasy 
movement among them, strangely suggestive of mingled ex- 
citement and reluctance, as though they were at once eager 
and loath to quit their floating home, the familiar cabin in 
which so many hours have been passed, the white decks which 
have become to them what the pavement in front of your 
house is to you. The ship is endeared to them, and the hold 
she has upon them is felt, now that they shall shortly leave 
her. How nobly she has struggled with the waves and the 
wind ! What grandeur she assumes when thought of with 
respect to the immense universe of water she has traversed 
in safety ! But a few weeks ago, one might say, she was in 


SYDNEY. 


155 


English waters, and now she is breasting the waves of the 
antipodes, raising her graceful canvas to the heavens with 
almost conscious elegance, as though exulting in the knowl- 
edge of the feat she has performed — a feat of which no 
repetition can ever diminish the wonder, the courage, and the 
triumph. 

And now the land loomed large and bold upon the horizon, 
a gray and iron coast, inhospitable enough to scare away all 
rash adventurers, one might think, in search of new homes 
and brighter fortunes. 

What was Caxjtain Duff about ? Did he mean to run his ship 
bow on to those granite- colored cliffs stretching to right and 
left, with their swart base marginated with a line of crawling 
foam ? Screw your eyes up attentively, and you will see two 
breaks in the shore. The bowsj)rit of the Jessie Maxwell heads 
for the break on the right. Slowly the coast grows clearer. 
That break on the left is but a deceptive hollow, with a vast 
block of rock lying in the blue, shark-studded water, upon 
which, many years later, a noble ship, called the Dunhar, shall 
be wrecked, and, of a great crowd of human beings, but one 
man saved. 

And now behold the miracle of the seaman’s art I 

For weeks and weeks, counting from the English summer, 
the Jessie Maxwell has been surrounded by the ocean, directed 
through light and darkness, through bright sunshine and howl- 
ing tempests charged with sleet and spray, by no more than a 
little needle, but gifted with a steadfastness of intelligence 
more unerring than the loftiest that humanity is endowed with. 
For weeks and weeks this little needle points and the helms- 
man obeys, and onward the ship sails through hundreds of 
miles of water, until one morning those on board awake and 
look ahead, and lo ! there is the land, with the ship’s head 
pointing accurately towards the little cleft in the coast through 
which the great Bay of Sydney is to be entered. 

This bay is a vision of beauty. No hint of its existence is 
given until you have sailed into it. The effort produced by 
the contrast between the rugged, iron, sterile coast beheld from 
the sea, and the loveliness of deep-blue water and summer 


150 


JOHN nOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


islands riclilj wooded, and green hills sloping to the water’s 
edge, and sandy creeks, with the heavy bush to the right, and 
the tropical splendor of vegetation that meets the eye upon the 
outlying land — all which form the noble bay into which you 
pass through the narrowest and most repellent of headlands — 
is not to be described. One might think that Nature had 
stooped to the human device of a pantomimic sui*prise, and 
reared the bleak Australian coast in this latitude for no other 
reason than to give effect to the grand transformation scene she 
exhibits behind it. 

To the eyes of Holdsworth, wearied by the eternal glancing 
or leaping of the sea, how sweet and refreshing were the green 
shores, the houses peeping out here and there upon the out- 
skirts of the bush, the trees overhanging the margin of the 
islands like living things never weary of admiring their own 
shapes ! Here and there a boat rowed from shore to shore. 
Small coasters lay at anchor, their sails clewed up, but not 
furled, and the men lounging drowsily aboard of them. Hark 
to the humming of the locusts ! comparable to nothing so 
much as the murmurs of a sleepy congregation reciting the 
responses in church. 

Anon the city of Sydney opened ; at its foot a great semicir- 
cular basin of water, with the masts of many vessels standing 
out against the farther houses, and the green hills backing all. 
How picturesque from a distance the combined colo;ps of the 
streaming flags, the white-fronted houses, the green of the 
hills, and the heavenly azure of the sky ! All the way on the 
left ran the houses into the country beyond, and close at hand 
were the shaggy abu ments of wooded land, with deep, shady 
recesses through which the sunlight sparkled on the emerald 
ground, with many boats upon the water to give variety and 
life to the picture. Far, far away, almost like an echo from 
the Old World, the strains of a band playing a hearty EngKsh 
melody could be heard. 

No thoughtful man can behold such a colony as this without 
finding something at once pathetic and inspiring in the spec- 
tacle. A great rugged continent, lying hidden in the distant 
Pacific main, is encountered by human enterprise, and in a few 


SYDNEY. 


157 


years we witness towns and cities thronging its seaboard, and 
all along its surf -beaten shores is heard the hum of industry. 
We mark the inalienable love of home, of the mother-country, 
in a thousand tokens, and find the measureless ocean bridged 
by sympathy and memory, and Old England renewed in such 
forms as make us scarcely conscious of our distance from 
it ; though sometimes thought itself, when the thousand 
leagues of waters that flow between are remembered, seems 
almost powerless to present our beloved home to us as some- 
thing real, so vague, so dim, so inaccessibly remote has it be- 
come since we left its shores. Signs of remembered things are 
about us. We think of the home love which gave that name 
to that street ; which reared yonder house in the likeness of 
one in the far-off land that enshrines the emigrant’s most 
precious memories of childhood ; which parcelled out yonder 
garden in the fashion of the little tract of land in the distant 
country whose soil is sacred to the mind as the favorite re- 
treat of a beloved parent. The very nomenclature by which 
the colonist dignifies some mean spot or small building by 
the name of a noble city or a spacious edifice in the old home 
is full of pathos, since it can signify no more than a deep- 
rooted affection (not to be weakened or divorced by the harsh- 
est recollection of the impracticable struggle for bread which 
drove whole families across the sea) for England, and a tender 
impulse to give permanent form to memories which survive 
through many generations, and create loyalty and patriotism 
among a people who owe nothing to the country and the sover- 
eign whom they reverence, and would at any moment serve. 
British faces are around us ; British accents sound in our ears ; 
and on all sides we behold signs of that British courage, audac- 
ity, and genius which grow sublime under our gathering appre- 
ciation of the difficulties which have been conquered and the 
triumphs which have been achieved. 


158 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH CHIEF MATE. 


CHAPTEE XIX. 

HOMEWAKD BOUND. 

In the year 1832, within a week or two of the date that would 
make the time exactly five years since the Meteor lay off 
Gravesend waiting to embark her captain and start for the port 
it was her doom never to reach, a large ship was sailing slowly 
up the river, her poop crowded with passengers, and many 
heads ranged along her bulwarks. 

Far away aft, hard by the wheel, stood a man thickly 
bearded, dressed in dark clothes, his arms folded, and his 
eyes bent steadfastly upon the passing shore. He was alone ; 
for the rest of the passengers, of whom there were many, were 
grouped about the break of the poop talking to one another 
excitedly, or pointing to the houses ashore, or watching the 
steerage passengers on the main-deck cording their boxes, 
cramming their clothes into bundles, and making preparations 
for landing that afternoon. 

There was something in the expression of this man’s face 
which would have attracted and detained your attention ; a 
mixture of profound melancholy and struggling surprise, 
clouded with what might have passed very well for a mood of 
deep abstraction. His features were thin and haggard, the 
nose pinched and white, his eyes dark and gleaming, and sunk 
in hollows shagged by eyebrows of black hair mingled with 
white, which met in a perpendicular seam in his forehead. He 
presented the appearance of one suffering from some incurable 
constitutional malady which had wasted the flesh off his bones, 
arched his back, hollowed his chest, and brought into his face 
a permanent expression of mingled pensiveness and sorrow. 

A round-faced, brisk, and busy-looking little man happening 
just then to pop his person out through the companion, stood 
looking a while at the shore with eager twinkling eyes, and 
then, directing his gaze aft, caught sight of our lonely indi- 
vidual and approached him. 


HOMEWARD BOUND, 


159 


“ Ah, Mr. Hampden, there you are ! still puzzling, puzzling, 
eh ? ” he exclaimed, in a hearty manner. ‘ ‘ Come now, you 
have seen Folkestone, Margate, the Keculvers, eh, now ? Con- 
fess that those places have helped you to remember all you 
want to know. ” 

The person addressed as Mr. Hampden, but whom we will 
continue to call by his proper name of Holdsworth, turned his 
eyes from the shore and answered with an effort, as though he 
could not at once break away from his thoughts. 

‘ ‘ I know all those places well ; and there’s not a house yon- 
der, I may say, that doesn’t assure me I am on familiar ground. 
But they tell me nothing. My past is still a puzzle, doctor, of 
which these scenes are only fragments. There are many more 
things to come before I can piece it into a whole.” 

“What is a cure for a decayed memory? what ought to re- 
vive old impressions ? ” exclaimed the little doctor, hammering 
a snuffbox with his knuckles. “ You’ll never know, Mr. 
Hampden, how you have Aveighed upon my mind. I feel, sir, 
that I have no business to let you quit this ship uncured. And 
yet, what more tlian I have done can I do ? I have exhausted 
my imagination in questions.” 

“Yes, doctor, you have been very kind, and I thank you 
heartily for the interest you haA^e taken in me.” 

“Ay, but interest is of no professional use,” returned the 
doctor, sniffing up a huge pinch of snuff. “We look to results 
in our calling. I must say I should like to have been able to 
tell Mr. Sherman when I get back that I left you remembering 
everything. Eh, now ? But I don’t believe there’s a medical 
man living who ever encountered such a case as yours. So 
much density of mental gloom, sir, seems psychologically im- 
possible. If you could only have given me one end of the 
thread, so to speak, I might have draAvn the whole skein out 
smooth. Look about you now. Here is genuine Thames 
scenery, which, if you are an Englishman, ought to go home 
straight to your heart and recall a thousand matters. ” 

Holdsworth stared around him, puzzling and biting his li^D. 

“ I have often felt, and I feel noAV,” he exclaimed, “ that if I 
could see something which was prominently identified with my 


160 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


past my memory would return. When we were off Margate I 
grew breathless — breathless, doctor, believe me, under the 
shock of an indefinable sensation. I made sure that my mem- 
ory was about to rush upon me — oh ! it is impossible to explain 
what is inexplicable to myself. But there have been moments, 
since we first entered the river, when I have felt that a revela- 
tion was close at hand — and I have trembled while awaiting the 
flooding in of memory, which will not come — which will not 
come !” 

“ It will come. The power that you possess to remember the 
names and qualities of things which you see, has long ago i3er- 
suaded me that your memory is not dead, but torpid. Keep 
your body up, when you get ashore, with nourishing food. 
Walk the streets constantly and use your eyes, and, when a 
recollection rises to the surface, don’t rush upon it voraciously, 
but leave it to its own will. Consider, memories are nothing 
but shadows ; you can’t dodge and drive them into corners.” 

Here somebody called to him, on which the little man shook 
Holdsworth’s hand, and darted towards the group of passengers. 

The ship was rapidly nearing Gravesend, where she would 
disembark her passengers. The Thames looked noble, with 
many vessels of all shapes and sizes breaking its shining- 
waters, with the houses and wharves ashore, with here and 
there a short wooden pier running into the stream, and the 
green summer country smiling beyond. 

It was a bright July morning, and the air had an exquisite 
transparency that so clarified and sharpened the outlines of 
objects that it was like looking at them through highly-polished 
glass. Just such a day should greet all homeward-sailing ships, 
and make their inmates merry with a foretaste of the shore life 
they are to enjoy after their long strife with the distant treach- 
erous ocean. 

Anon Gravesend opened, and then the pilot volleyed some 
quick orders along the ship. Down rattled staysails, and jibs, 
and yards, with their spacious breadths of canvas ; and the 
stately vessel, denuded of her towering costume, swam lazily 
into position off the town. Then rose a cry, “ Stand clear of 
the chain-cable ! ” and the second mate, on the port side of the 


HOMEWARD BOUND. 


161 


top-gallant forecastle, brandished his arms as a warning to the 
people on the main-deck to crowd out of the road. 

“ Let go the anchor ! ” 

Clank ! clank ! went the carpenter’s hammer. And then, 
with a deafening roar, down plunged the mighty weight of 
iron, and tore the huge cable with shrieks through the hawser- 
pipe. The ship swung slowly around and became stationary, 
with many hands aloft furling the sails, and the quarter-deck 
throbbing with the movements and struggles of excited passen- 
gers. 

And now a dozen boats, some large, some small, came tear- 
ing through the water to the ship. How the watermen pulled ! 
Their faces all veins, and their arms all knots, and their hats 
anywhere ! The canoes of cannibals, sneaking from the secret 
creeks and hidden points of an unexplored island, advance not 
more swiftly, nor, maybe, with feller or more rapacious designs, 
upon the intruder in their waters, than did our Gravesend 
wherries upon this ship fresh from Australia. 

Many of the watermen were soon upon the quarter-deck, 
demanding monstrous sums to row three-quarters of a mile. 
You saw boxes and bundles seized and disappear, and excited 
’tween-deck passengers elbowing a lane to the gangway, fired 
with a resolution to disembark or perish, while children 
screamed, and women implored, and men gesticulated, and 
even menaced one another. One by one the wherries put off, 
loaded to the gunwale with people and baggage. These 
wherries returned and returned again, until the ship was 
cleared of the majority of her passengers. 

‘ ‘ Good-by, captain, ” said Holdsworth. 

A sunburnt man in a blue cloth coat with gilt buttons took 
Holds worth’s hand, and grasped it cordially. 

‘‘ Good-by, Mr. Hampden, good-by to you, sir. Any time 
these three months, if you have a mind to let me see your face, 
you will be able to find me out by calling at the Jerusalem 
Coffee-house. I shall be glad, sir, as we all of us shall be, to 
hear that London has stirred up your recollection and restored 
your memory.” 

Then the chief mate and second officers and some midship 
11 


162 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


men pressed forward and shook his hand, and Holdsworth, 
pointing out his luggage to a waterman, descended the gang- 
way-ladder, and was rowed to Gravesend. 

And now, while our hero, having been put ashore and eaten 
a hurried dinner, climbs on top of the coach that is to land him 
at Southwark, let us beguile an uninteresting interval by cast- 
ing a brief glance backward. 

On the arrival of the Jessie Maxwell at Sydney, Holdsworth 
had accompanied Mr. Sherman to his house, and been then and 
there established as an inmate as long as he chose to remain. 
He w^as also given a clerkship in Mr. Sherman’s office, worth 
£250 a year, which was by no means an out-of-the-way price 
for a man’s labor in Australia in those days, though in Holds- 
worth’s case the salary was rendered nearly worth as much 
again by his friend providing him with board and lodging free. 
The truth was (1), Mr. Sherman wanted an honest man in his of- 
fice ; (2), Holds worth’s sufferings, friendlessness, and perfect 
amiability, coupled with his deprivation of memory, which af- 
fected all whom he conversed with as something w^orse even 
than blindness, had obtained a permanent hold for him on his 
generous patron’s sympathy long before the Jessie Maxwell had 
sighted the Australian shore. 

Mr. Sherman was a widow^er and childless. A maiden sister 
of his lived with him ; a woman whose character and face were 
as like his as an egg is to an egg. Not knowing Holdsworth’s 
name, they agreed to call him Mr. Hampden, which would 
serve as well as any other, and which had at least the merit of 
beginning with the letter of his real name. 

As Mr. Hampden he was introduced to Mr. Sherman’s 
friends, wdio took a very great interest in him. Indeed, some 
of these people went to the extent of giving dinner-parties in 
his honor, and for a time he w^as a lion. All this attention, 
meant in perfect kindness, greatly disturbed him, for his 
loss of memory made him singularly sensitive, and his ner- 
vous system had entirely given w^ay under the extraordinary 
sufferings he had endured. Mr. Sherman would have kept 
his secret, but Captain Duff and the officers and men of the 


HOMEWARD BOUND. 


163 


Jessie Maxwell went and talked of him all over the city, and 
then the tale of his discovery and rescue was published in a 
newspaper and made the property of the public. 

But the public soon forgot him. The colony was young, and 
the New Hollander had too many mines to sink, and houses to 
build, and acres to clear, and convicts to protest against, and 
home oppressions of every species to deal with, to keep his 
mind long fixed on one subject. Holdsworth settled into a 
regular clerkly routine, and every day improved himself in Mr. 
Sherman’s opinion by the peculiar sweetness of his amiability, 
and by his gratitude expressed in every delicate form that 
could vehicle the emotion of his full heart. 

There was an able doctor at that time practising in Sydney, 
and Mr. Sherman invited him to his house, and introduced 
him to Holdsworth, believing that, by skilful handling, it was 
possible to restore the poor fellow’s memory. But the doctor 
after a few weeks shook his head, and pronounced the case 
hopeless, or at least beyond the reach of human skill. 

Indeed, rarely had a more curious and bafiling problem been 
submitted than Holdsworth’s mind in those days. 

Here was a man capable of recollecting with precision every 
incident that had befallen him since his rescue, exhibiting 
shrewdness in conversation, and accuracy in matters of current 
fact. His intellect was as healthy as that of the healthiest- 
headed man who conversed with him, but up to the period of 
his rescue everything was in darkness. The conjectures which 
were offered him — so close to the mark some of them that 
they brushed the very skirts of real facts and told the truth by 
implication — conveyed no ideas. His eternal rejoinder was 
no more than a shake of the head. Had he been a sailor ? 
Did he remember the port from which he sailed ? the rig or 
name of the vessel ? his native town ? Such questions, and 
hundreds of them, were asked, but though he grasped familiar 
names with almost passionate eagerness, they established no 
faintest clew as to his real past. And then inquiries becoming 
at last no better than fruitless imi)ortunities were dropped, 
and Holdsworth was considered incurable. 

Yet this could hardly have been thought, had those wdio 


164 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


gave in this opinion been conscious of the undercurrent of 
secret, but not the less powerful, yearnings, absolutely object- 
less, scarce owning definite forms, which yet the restless in- 
stincts of the man urged with greedy emphasis. These move- 
ments were, indeed, purely spiritual — the action of the soul 
groping in her cell and searching for that window of the mind 
which had been blackened, and through which no light could 
break. Of the mental torments this intellectual blindness 
occasioned, no words that I possess can describe the anguish. 
Month after month went by and still found him searching 
heart-brokenly in the gloom for some image, some substance, 
some sign, that should appease the piteous cravings of his in- 
stincts, loJiich knew all, hut could not speak. 

Whatever feminine tact could suggest to give light to his 
mind, Mr. Sherman’s sister did. She made out a long list of 
names beginning with H, trusting that one among them might 
be his, and that the sight of it would recall many things or 
all. 

But, long and patiently compiled as the list was, many names 
there must be which she would omit — and among them his 
own. Then she made out a list of the names of the ships ; but 
here was an endless job, prosecuted for a long while mth 
benevolent industry, and then abandoned in despair. She read 
the European papers carefully, hoping to find some account of 
the loss of the vessel in which, it was surmised, Holdsworth 
had been a passenger ; but no such account ever rewarded her 
search. Numerous were the other remedies she resorted to, 
but none of them produced any result. 

A few months of such unavailing work would soon extinguish 
hope. Both she and her brother desisted at last from their 
merciful endeavors, in the full and final conviction that nothing 
but the hand of God could ever draw aside the black curtain 
that hung over Holdsworth’s past. 

But, not to dwell at needless length upon this part of the 
story : 

More than four years had passed since Holdsworth had ar- 
rived in Sydney. Mr. Sherman had long learned to think of 
him as settled in the colony, had increased his salary, and con- 


HOMEWARD BOUND. 


165 


gratulated liimself not only on the possession of a valnable and 
trustworthy assistant, but upon a pleasant, amiable, and thor- 
oughly gentlemanly companion. No expression of a wish to 
leave had ever escaped Holdsworth’s lips. He appeared not 
only contented, but resigned to the affliction that had practi- 
cally deprived him of all knowledge of his past existence. 

He came down to breakfast one morning with a face betok- 
ening great agitation. Mr. Sherman was in the breakfast- 
room, and instantly noticed Holdsworth’s air of bewilderment 
and distress. 

“Mr. Sherman,” exclaimed Holdsworth at once to him, “ do 
you remember telling me that it was possible for my memory 
to be revived by a dream ? ” 

‘ ‘ Yes — has it happened ? ” 

“I cannot tell ; but this much I know, that a voice sounded 
last night in my ears, and bade me return at once to England. 
It was a woman’s voice — it had a clearly remembered tone — 
and I knew it in my sleep ; but when I awoke and tried to re- 
call it I could not.” 

“ But your dream ? ” 

“That was all.” 

“ Was your dream merely confined to the utterance of this 
voice?” 

“ I can remember nothing more than the voice.” 

“And you cannot recall whose voice it resembled?” 

“No.” 

Mr. Sherman was silent, and Holdsworth watched him with 
anxiety that was almost pathetic, so eager was his hope that 
his friend would find some light in this dim and curious night- 
fancy to help him with. 

“ I can see nothing serviceable in this,” said Mr. Sherman, 
presently — “ but it is hopeful. Wait awhile. This voice may 
return, or you may dream something more tangible. Eemem- 
ber,” he added, with a smile, “ that the morning light does not 
flood the world suddenly. The jDale, faint gray comes first, 
and there are many gradations of brightness between the first 
peep of dawn and the rising of the sun.” 

But though Holdsworth waited, the voice did not return. 


166 


JOHN HOLDSW ORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


Nevertheless, it had sounded in his ears to some purpose. 
Day by day a longing grew in him to return to England, which 
became in time deep and fervent and irresistible. Supersti- 
tion was the root of this yearning ; but the poor fellow, urged 
by his instincts into an eternal searching amid the darkness, 
would scarcely pause to consider the nature of his keen desire, 
but submit to it as an ordinance from God commissioned to 
impel him into the divine light of memory. 

Mr. Sherman watched his increasing restlessness in silence, 
waiting for him to declare his intention. He announced it one 
day. 

“Mr. Sherman, I feel guilty of deep ingratitude in harbor- 
ing a wish to leave you. But my longing to return to Eng- 
land has become so strong that I can no longer resist it. God 
kncrws if I am not taking a foolish step in voluntarily quitting 
so good and beloved a friend. But what are these instincts 
which govern me ? Ought I to blind myself to them ? Are 
they not given me for some end which can only be acconij)lished 
by my obeying them ? I do not know what I am leaving you 
to seek ; but I feel that whatever my past may hold which is 
precious to me is to be found in England.” 

“If you have this confidence in your impulse,” answered Mr. 
Sherman, “ you are right in obeying it. I am at least sure 
that your memory stands but a poor chance of recovery in a 
strange land, surrounded by objects which have no possible 
reference to your past, and can therefore have no value as an 
appeal. I shall be sorry, very sorry, to lose you, Mr. Hami3- 
den, but I think I can trace the hand of Providence in this 
longing of yours, and in all humbleness and sincerity I ask 
God to bless your endeavors, and restore you the illumination 
of your memory.” 

This resolution, now taken, was final. Mr. Sherman’s en- 
couragement gave new strength to Holdsworth’s wishes, and the 
restlessness that beset him became almost unbearable to him. 
In ten days from that date a ship named the Wellington sailed 
for London ; she was to carry many passengers, but one saloon 
berth was still vacant, and that Mr. Sherman himself procured 
and paid for, for Holdsworth. Nor did his kindness stop with 


AN INSPIRATION 


167 


this. A few days before the ship left Sydney he asked Holds- 
worth if he had saved any money. 

“Yes, four hundred pounds.” 

‘ ‘ Come ! that will help you along for a time. Dr. Marlow, 
a friend of mine, is attending an old lady to England. I have 
explained your case to him, and begged him to give you his 
closest attention. He is clever, and the long term of intimacy 
you will enjoy before you reach London may be productive of 
some good to you. And now do me the favor to i3ut this in 
your pockefc,” he continued, handing Holdsworfch a little parcel. 
“ No need to examine its contents now. It is a small gift from 
my sister and myself. You will find my address inside it, 
which will remind you to write to us ; for be sure that nobody 
can take more interest in you than we do. Above all, 
remember that if ever you should want a friend, you will find 
two very steadfast ones in Sydney, who will rejoice to welcome 
you back.” 

The parcel contained bank-notes to the value of three hun- 
dred x^oi-inds. 


CHAPTEE XX. 

AN INSPIRATION. 

In the fine old times — the good old times — a short journey 
took a long time ; and it was evening when the Gravesend 
coach put Holdsworth down at the door of an old inn in South- 
wark named the Green Dragon. 

He was now in London, but in an unfamiliar x)art of it, and 
he stood for some minutes gazing up and down the wide, long 
street, with its hurrying crowds, and thronging vehicles, and 
endless shops, without getting one idea more from it than ever 
he had got out of Pitt Street or George Street, or any other 
street in Sydney. 

It mattered little to him where he should sleep that night. 
He had as yet formed no plans as to how he should act with 
respect to beginning the inquiries which were to give him back 


168 


JOHN II0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


liis life’s history. So he entered the bar af the Green Dragon 
and asked for a bedroom, with which he was at once accom- 
modated. 

On descending the stairs he was encountered by a veiy 
polite waiter, who begged to receive his orders for refresh- 
ments. The house was a very old-established one, and the 
waiter, with a smile of concern, as though the necessity were 
a melancholy one that obliged him to suggest such obvious 
truths at that time of day, ventured to observe that the 
gentleman might travel the whole breadth and length of the 
United Kingdom witliout meeting with better wines and 
choicer cooking than were to be found at that inn. On the 
strength of this and a small appetite Holdsworth ordered sup- 
per, and was conducted to the coffee-room, where he seated 
himself at a table furnished with a mustard-pot large enough 
to have supplied a hospital with poultices, and amused him- 
self as best he could with staring at some grizzly faded prints, 
after Hogarth, and a map of London, to which several genera- 
tions of flies had contributed squares, streets, and blind alleys 
nowhere to be found in the metropolis proper. 

Having eaten his supper, he was leaning back in his chair, 
with a half resolution in his mind to stroll forth into the 
streets for an hour, and see what suggestions his wanderings 
might obtain for him, when the waiter came up, and, leaning 
confidentially upon the table, informed him that there was an 
‘‘ ’armonious meeting going on in the public room at the bot- 
tom of the passage, and, if the gentleman liked, the s^Derits he 
was pleased to border could be served him there.” 

“ Who are they ? ” asked Holdsworth. 

“All sorts, sir. , The ’armony is done by some gents as 
lives in the neighborhood, who look in every Wednesday 
night to drink and converse. The governor takes the chair, 
and every gent as is stoppin’ in the house is made welcome. 
I think you’ll be pleased, sir.” 

“ This is dull enough, at all events,” said Holdsworth, look- 
ing around him. It was too early to go to bed, and he felt too 
tired to take his half-projected stroll. So, conceiving that a 
quarter of an hour’s insj)ection of the convivialists in the pub- 


AN INSPIRATION 


169 


lie room might cheer him up, he rose and followed the waiter 
down the passage. 

The scene into which he was admitted certainly wanted no 
feature of liveliness. The room was long and low-pitched, 
with two immense grates in it, and wooden mantel-pieces 
carved into all kinds of quaint embodiments of Greek and 
Eoman mythology. Common brass sconces were affixed to 
the walls, with a couple of candles in each. Around were 
pictures of fighting and theatrical celebrities of that 
and an earlier day : Humphreys and Mendoza stripped to 
the waist, and w’orking into each other’s eyes in wonderful 
style, watched by a distant and pensive crowd in hats of the 
Tom-and- Jerry school, uncomfortably tight breeches, and 
coat-collars above their ears ; Kemble in furs ; Incledon 
dressed as a sailor; Braham as little Isaac in the “Duenna ; ” 
and Dicky Suett, with a thing like a balloon coming out of 
his mouth, and “ Oh la ! ” written upon it. At the head of 
a long table sat a stout man in a striped yellow w'aistcoat, 
a bottle-green coat, and a white neck-cloth ; several black 
bottles, steaming jugs, and a plate of lemons were in front 
of him. And down the table on either side were seated a 
number of individuals, some of them dressed in extravagant 
style, a few clad soberly, and most of them smoking cigars or 
rapping snuff-boxes, laughing, talking, and drinking from fat, 
one-legged tumblers. 

As Holdsworth entered, either a speech, a song, or a senti- 
ment had just been delivered, for there was a great hammer- 
ing going on, mingled with cries of “ Bravo ! ” The “cheer,” 
who was the promoter of, and the sole gainer by these Wednes- 
day festivities, bowed to Holdsworth, and getting on to his 
legs, came round and bade him welcome in the name of all the 
good fellows there and then assembled, and gave him the sign, 
which Holdsworth, not having been made, did not take. He 
then led him to a vacant chair between two of the more soberly 
clad of the company, and having received and transmitted his 
commands to the waiter with a host-like and hospitable air, as 
though such a low arrangement as a reckoning had no exist- 
ence, resumed his place at the head of the table, knocked 


170_ JOHN HOLDSWOBTU, CHIEF MATE. 

loudly with his knuckles, and called upon Mr. Harris for a 
song. 

On this, up started a thin young man with a yellow beard, 
and, leaning on his hands, gazed slowly round him with a leer- 
ing and perfectly self-possessed bloodshot eye. Whereat there 
was a laugh. 

“ Gentlemen — ” he began. 

“ Order ! silence ! ” cried the landlord. “ Mr. ’Arris has your 
ear ! ” 

“And I wish I could say ladies. I am asked to sing a song, 
and I’ll do so with the greatest of pleasure. But before I begin, 
permit me to make an observation, as I don’t want to wound 
any gentleman’s feelings, though no fear of that kind will pre- 
vent me from expressing my sentiments, which are those of a 
Briton and a reformer, who has no opinion of the present, looks 
upon the past with contempt, and only lives for the future.” 

“ Hear ! ” from several reformers. 

“ There’s a good deal to be said against this age ; and there’s 
no abuse which the past don’t deserve ! The past ! gentlemen, 
it did for our grandmothers. The present ! it does for our 
fathers. But we, gentlemen — we who possess young and ardent 
minds ” 

“ Give us your song ! ” cried a voice. 

“We, gentlemen — we, the young blood of this great nation 
— we,” cried the orator, swinging his fist, and nearly knocking 
a cigar out of the mouth of a man at his side, with a face on 
him filled with idiotic admiration, “ are for the future ! ” 

An old man uttered a cheer ; the speaker then coughed, swal- 
lowed a draught of brandy and water, expanded his chest, ran 
his fingers through his hair, and began as follows, throwing 
out his arms in approved comic style : 

THE DAYS WHEN I WAS YOUNG. 

‘‘ Of the days v/hen I was young, sir, 

Sing the splendor and the fame, 

When the fields and woods among, sir. 

Traps were set to guard our game ; 


AN INSPIEATION. ' 


171 


When our clergymen got drunk, sir, 

And our Prince was made of waistcoats, 

When our soldiery had spunk, sir. 

And wore epaulets and faced coats. 

Chorus — Sing the days when I was young ! 

Such a song was never sung ! 

“ When Madeira, port, and sherry 

Were such wines as made men wits ; 

When our songs were coarse and merry. 

And our pockets full of writs ! 

When we fought like hungry Spartans, 

And told tales like Jemmy Twitcher’s ; 

When cognac was drunk in quarterns. 

And October ale in pitchers ! 

Sing the days, etc. 

“ When the House was full of quarrels. 

And our hustings the arenas 
For dead cats and bilious morals 
And the music of hyenas ! 

When our Avershaws were strangling. 

And our Mrs. Frys were preaching. 

And our priests and bishops wrangling, 

And our patriots a-screeching ! 

Sing the days, etc. 

When a Tory was a Tory, 

Armored tight in old tradition. 

Quoting nothing but the hoary. 

And a friend to superstition : 

Hating Irishmen and priests, sir. 

All excisemen and dissenters. 

Holy fasts and holy feasts, sir, 

Whigs and Jews and ten-pound renters ! 

Sing the days, etc. 

“ When our fiddlers were true artists. 

And our singers all had voices ; 

Ere our laborers were Chartists, 

And the land was full of noises. 

When our ‘ bloods ’ were breaking knockers, 
Smashing bells all free and hearty, 

And when little else could shock us 
But reports of Bonaparte. 

Sing the days, etc. 


172 


JOHN HOLDSWOBTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ When our coaches turned us over^ 

And our watchmen snored in alleys ; 

When it took a day to Dover, 

And a week or two to Calais. 

When Jack Ketch was hanging women 
Who stole bread for starving babies, 

And our rogues were just as common 
As new honey in old May bees. 

Sing the days, etc. 

“ Never more shall we survey, sir. 

Times so splendid and so stirring, 

Social life and tastes more gay, sir, 

Laws and statesmen more unerring, 

Fights and factions more unsparing, 

Tories truer to traditions. 

Foreign policy more daring — 

(Here the vocalist took a deep breath. ) 

And more brutal superstitions ! ” 

The sounds excited by this song were somewhat discordant, 
owing to the bravos being mingled with hisses. Mr. Harris 
resumed his seat with a contemptuous expression, and the 
chairman, rapping the table, called out : 

“ Gentlemen ! ’issing isn’t ’armony to any ear but a goose’s ! ” 

“I don’t like the sentiments of that song,” exclaimed a man 
at the bottom of the table. 

‘ ‘ Why not, sir ? ” demanded Mr. Harris, warmly. 

“ First of all, I don’t understand ’em,” said the other. 

“ Oh ! ” said Mr. Harris, with a sneer. 

‘ ‘ Much of what that song says is to be applied to the pres- 
ent as well as to the past,” observed an old gentleman, looking 
staggered at his own boldness in talking amid a silence. ‘‘ For 
my part, I don’t think a man fights fair who uses a two-edged 
sword. ” 

Several voices murmured acquiescence. 

‘‘ I’m for the future,” said Mr. Harris, ‘‘and told you so at 
the beginning.” 

“ See here, gentlemen,” called out the landlord, “ the mean- 
ing of Mr. Harris’s song, so far as I understand its hallusions, 
is this : he supposes himself to be old ” 


AN INSPIRATION 


173 


I don’t,” growled Mr. Harris. 

“ Quite the contrary, I think,” snarled a little grocer near the 
chairman. ‘ ‘ I reckon there’s more swaddling-clothes nor ex- 
perience in them sentiments, or I’m gone' deaf since I sat down.” 

“The meaning of my song is just what it says,” retorted Mr. 
Harris. “ I’m not ashamed of being a reformer. Better men 
than I or any other gentleman in this room, begging nobody'* s 
pardon, have been reformers. Thank God, my politics are not 
of a kind to call up my blushes when I own them ! ” 

As the Tories in the company judged that something offen- 
sive was meant by Mr. Harris, several persons spoke at once, 
and a clamor ensued which threatened to establish the meeting 
on any other basis than that of harmony. Indeed, one man, 
who was nearly intoxicated, went so far as to get upon his 
chair and exclaim, while he brandished his fist, that if he had 
it in his power, he would hang every Whig in the country. 
And there is no telling what further extravagances of language 
and gesture he might have indulged in, but for the pronij^t 
interference of a neighbor, who, catching hold of his coat-tail, 
pulled him under the table. 

However, by dint of shouting pacific language at the top of 
his voice, the chairman succeeded at last in restoring tranquil- 
lity. More grog was brought in, snuff-boxes were handed 
about, hands were shaken across the table, and loud cheers 
greeted the sentiment delivered by a gentleman who appeared 
to be vice-chairman : ‘ ‘ That ’armony of feeling was the music 
of humanity.” Mr. Harris apologized for having sung any- 
thing distasteful to the comjrany, who, he hoped, were all his 
very good friends ; and amid the clanking of spoons in glasses, 
and iDolite calls of “After you” for lighted spills, the conver- 
sation streamed into milder channels, and everybody did his 
best to look harmonious. 

Though Holdsworth w*as a good deal amused by this scene, 
and by the manners and dress of the people around him, he 
hardly felt himself equal to enduring very much more of this 
social harmony, and sat twisting his glass on the table, watch- 
ing the faces of the company, and waiting for another “row” 
to. make his escape without attracting notice. 


174 JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


He was presently addressed by a man sitting on liis left — a 
middle-aged individual, with a thin, smooth-shaven face and a 
keen eye, and very high shirt-collar. 

“A stranger, I make bold to think, sir ? ” 

‘‘Yes,” answered Holdsworth. 

“I judge so by an air of travel about you, if you’ll pardon 
me. Forgive me, sir, if I inquire your secret — understand me 
— ^your secret opinion as to that song just sung by the gentle- 
man opposite.” 

“ To tell you the truth,” replied Holdsworth, who imagined 
that his companion wanted to draw him into a political argu- 
ment, “I only caught a few of the verses, and am therefore 
scarcely able to give an opinion.” 

“Humph!” exclaimed the other. “Now, sir, I call that 
song clever — damned clever, and I’ll tell you why : its ironical. 
Without irony, sir, I wouldn’t give a pin’s head for the best 
piece of humor in the world. You’ll excuse what I am about 
to say, sir, I’m sure. You are a traveller — I flatter myself I 
can tell that with half an eye. Now, sir, as a man who has 
visited other countries, and observed human nature in a hun- 
dred different forms, you can’t help being a Whig. Confess 
sir, that you share my political views, which are those of a man 
who has only one cry — ‘ Down with rubbish 1 ’ ” 

“I hate rubbish as much as any man,” replied Holdsworth. 

His companion looked struck and delighted. . 

“ Your hand, sir. Permit me to shake it. I love a Whig, 
sir. Here’s to your good health.” 

“Are you a native of this country, sir?” he continued, 
glancing at Holdsworth’s dress, which had a decidedly colonial 
cut. 

“ I believe so.” 

“But not a resident?” said the other, whose turn of mind 
was decidedly inquisitive. 

“No.” 

“Now what part might you have come from, sir, if you’ll 
excuse the liberty ? ” asked the man, confidently. 

“ From Australia.” 

“God bless my heart and soul ! You don’t say so ! Dear 


AJSr IWSPIBATIOK 


175 


me ! Australia ! Is it possible ? I consider myself a bit of a 
traveller ; but in your presence, sir, I feel my insignificance.” 

Holdsworth laughed, but made no answer. 

‘ ‘ They say that Australia is a wonderful country, sir ; that 
you grow cherries with the stones outside, and that your par- 
rots are like sea-gulls. Fine climate though, I believe, sir, if 
you will pardon me ? ” 

“Very fine.” 

“ And yet not equal to ours ? ” 

“ Perhaps not.” 

“ They talk of scenery, sir. Now, I was never out of Eng- 
land in my life, though there’s not a hole or corner in it that I 
don’t know. But what can equal English scenery? Take 
Devonsliire. Take Cumberland. Were you ever in those 
counties ? ” 

“Never.” 

“Yorkshire?” 

“No.” 

“ Talk of desolation — see the moors : great plains of the 
color of tripe stretching for miles, with one dwarf tree for every 
league of ground, and that’s all. Now, sir, my taste may be 
wrong, or perhaps it’s right ; I wouldn’t flaunt it in any man’s 
face, though I’d hold on to it if I was on my death-bed. Of 
all the counties in England, which think you I’m the most 
partial to ? ” 

“I cannot imagine.” 

“Kent, sir!” exclaimed the man, drawing back triumph- 
antly. 

The name sent a thrill through Holdsworth. He pricked his 
ears and looked at his companion earnestly. 

“ The Devonshire people may crack up their county, but 
give me Kent. I am a native of Kent, sir ! ” 

“ Indeed I ” 

‘ ‘ I was born at Canterbury. Ever seen the cathedral ? ” 

“Canterbury Cathedral! ” muttered Holdsworth, struggling 
to grasp an illusive, half -formed fancy that flitted across his 
mind. 

“ Take the country about Hanwitch, now ” 


176 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ Han witch ! ” echoed Holdsworth. The name pierced him 
as a sword might. He pressed his fingers tightly over his eyes, 
his face turned white, and his whole body trembled. 

His companion stared at him. 

‘‘Do you know Hanwitch?” he asked, wondering if this 
singular looking person with the haggard face, Australian 
clothes, and thick beard was in possession of his right mind. 

“ The name struck me,” answered Holdsworth, removing his 
hands and frowning, in his effort to master the meaning of the 
extraordinary emotion excited by the name of that town. 

“ There’s not a spot of land anywhere within thirty miles of 
Canterbury all round,” continued the man, looking at Holds- 
woHh watchfully, “ that I don’t know. I name Hanwitch 
because there’s a bit of river scenery near it which is prettier 
than anything I’ve seen in any other part of England. If 
you’ve got the leisure, and would like to see what this country 
can show in the way of good views, take a run down to Han- 
witch.” 

He pulled out a pocket-book, and, extracting a card, handed 
it to Holdsworth, observing in a tone that at least showed he 
had regained his confidence in his neighbor, 

‘ ‘ Show that, sir, at the bar of the Three Stars at Hanwitch, 
and if you don’t get every attention, be good enough to write 
to me, and see if they don’t lose my patronage.” 

Holdsworth looked at the card, whereon he might have seen 
a very commonplace name, printed in capitals, with “ Com- 
mercial Traveller ” squeezed into the corner ; but he saw no- 
thing. A name had been pronounced which quickened the 
dormant memory in him into a vitality that threatened to make 
it burst through the shell that imprisoned it, and proclaim all 
that he passionately longed to know. 

Powerless must his mind have been not to find in the name 
of the Hanwitch inn the magic to give him back his memory. 
Could not his heart recall the sweet day he had spent in Han- 
witch with Dolly at his side — the sweetest, happiest day of all 
the days he had passed in the brief three months during which 
they had been together ? One might have thought that, saving 
her own dear face, there was nothing more potent to roll back 


AN INSPIRATION 


177 


the deep mantle of darkness, and lay bare the shining panorama 
of those far-off times, than the name of the inn in whose deep 
bay-window they had sat linked in each other’s arms, watching 
the soft sunshine shimmering through the summer leaves, and 
the clear river wandering gently along its emerald-banked 
channel. 

Further conversation was out of the question for a while, by 
the chairman hammering on the table and calling silence for a 
song. The disagreeable effects produced by the last song had 
completely passed away, and the landlord thought that another 
“ ditty,” as he called it, might safely be sung. 

A very corpulent man stood up, with a face upon him of 
which the quantity of flesh had worked the expression into an 
aspect of fixed amazement. An immense blue-spotted cravat 
adorned his throat, and long streaks of hair fell slanting down 
his cheeks. His small-clothes and arm-sleeves were distress- 
ingly tight, and suggested that any display of pathos or 
humor, of gesticulation or laughter, would be in the highest 
degree inconvenient. It was not hard to guess that this fat 
man sang comic songs, that he dropped ever^ h, and that 
he was in the eating line, in a commercial sense. 

He was saluted with a round of laughter, which, being ham- 
mered down, he began in a soft, oily, tenor voice : 

“ A dawg’s-meat man he loved a voman, 

Sairey her name vos — not uncommon ; 

He had vun eye, and he hown’d a barren 
Coopid ups vith his bow and lets fly a arrer. 

‘ Oh dear ! ’ cries this dawg’s-meat man, 

Fingerin’ his buzzum and looking vith his eye ; 

‘ Vot can this be a-sticking in my tan ? ’ 

Ven Sairey draws near a-lookin’ very shy, 

‘ Tell me,’ sez he, ‘ the name o’ this here thing.’ 

‘Vy,’ sez Sairey, vinkin’, ‘it’s vun o’ Coopid’s darts,’” etc. 

This song gave such exquisite satisfaction to the company 
that, on his concluding it, he was entreated, amid cheers, to 
sing another ; on which, squaring his breast, but preserving 
his wooden face of fat astonishment, he began as follows : 

12 


ITS 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ There vos a ’ot pieman as vurked in the Strand, 

Singing hey, ho ! ’ot pies, all ’ot ! 

Vun night he vos kickin’ his ’eels at his stand 
Ven who should cum up but a lady all grand, 

Vith a dress all of satin, and rings on her ’and. 

And she asts for a pie 
Did this lady, oh my ! 

Let us cry. 

Singing hey, ho ! ’ot pies, all ’ot ! 

“ Now, our friend vos genteel, as all piemen should be. 

Singing hey, ho ! ’ot pies, all ’ot ! 

And he sez to this lady, so grand for to see, 

‘ My pies, mum, are meant for sich people as me, 

For poor cabbies and sich : not for folks of degree. 

And she jest sez, ‘ Oh, fie ! 

Hand me quickly a pie. 

Or I’ll cry.” 

Singing hey ho ! ’ot pies, all ’ot ! ” 

I spare the reader the remaining six verses of this delect- 
able song. The company joined in the clioms with the full 
force of their lungs, and so exhilarated the fat vocalist that at 
the end of the second verse he pushed away his chair, and fold- 
ing his arms on his breast, actually danced an accompaniment 
to the words amid shrieks of laughter and wild stretching for- 
ward of necks at the farther end of the table to see him. Holds- 
worth’s companion laughed until he grew faint, and then, to 
recover his strength, drank brandy-and- water, and then laughed 
again. The song was encored ; genuine vulgarity seldom fail- 
ing to please ; and then, a brief breathing-space of silence fall- 
ing, Holdsworth said to his companion, 

“ Will you tell me how I am to get to Han witch from here? ” 
“ Certainly. All you’ve got to do is, step across to the Can- 
terbury Arms — it’s five minutes’ walk from this house on the 
left — the coach starts for Canterbury at half -past seven in the 
morning every day.” 

‘‘Thank you,” said Holdsworth, who found it impossible, 
amid the renewed hubbub of conversation that had burst out, 
to ask some questions about Hanwitch which might help him 
to understand the longing that possessed him to visit it. 


AJV INSPIRATION, 


179 


“ You’re iiot going — the night’s very young, sir ? ” said the 
man, seeing Holdsworth rise. But Holdsworth merely wished 
him “ good-night,” and slipped out of the room unnoticed by 
the company, who were at that moment busy in entreating the 
fat man to give them another song. 

The cool air and silence of the passage were a great relief 
after the heat and noise of the public room. It was now draw- 
ing near to eleven o’clock. Holdsworth went to the bar and 
asked for a candle, and was lighted to his bedroom by a cham- 
ber-maid with ringlets and black eyes, who probably felt 
surprised that her charms attracted no notice whatever from 
the gentleman, who seemed to find pleasure in no other object 
than the carpet on which he trod. 

Holdsworth closed the door, and a whole hour passed before 
he rose to remove his clothes. There was something in the 
recollection of the thrill which the name of Hanwitch had sent 
through him that impelled him to bend the whole energies of 
his mind to the word, and he strove with Memory passionately 
and fiercely, but could not wrench a syllable from her. He 
repeated the name until it lost even its sense as the designa- 
tion of a town. Nevertheless, every moment made his longing 
to visit it deeper. There must be some reason why this name 
had so stirred him. The names of other English counties and 
cities had been pronounced before him, and by him over and 
over again, but they touched no chord, they awoke no echo in 
his mind, however dim and elusive. 

If memory would only define the object he sought ! This it 
would not do. He was a wanderer, obeying the dictation of 
blind instinct, which urged without guiding him. Of all his 
past, nothing was present to his mind. He knew not what he 
sought. His was an afiliction crueler than blindness, for a 
blind man could say, ‘‘ A beloved one has strayed from me. I 
seek her. I see not, indeed, those who surround me, but my 
mission has form and substance in my mind, and my inquiries 
cannot always prove fruitless.” But Holdsworth w^as com- 
manded by a mysterious emotion which controlled without 
enlightening him. Something had been lost — something w^as to 
be found. He felt his want, but could not explain it to him- 


180 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


self. No man could help him, since no man could guess what 
was the thing he looked for. 

When he left his chair, he sank upon his knees and asked 
God in broken tones to help him — to direct him into the path 
that should lead him to the light — to aid him in his yearning 
to re-illuminate his memory. 


CHAPTEE XXI. 

FOK HANWITCH. 

If a man has one good reason for being grateful for living in 
these times, it is because they are not coaching days. 

The old stage-coach, the Wellerian coachman, the spruce 
guard, with his horn and his jokes, the fat ]3eople inside, the 
gruff people outside, all contributed a picturesque detail to 
the age they belonged to ; but I have generally found that the 
more picturesque an object is, the fitter it is to be surveyed at 
a distance only. 

If in the days to which the old stage-coach belonged it never 
rained, it was never cold, one was never in a hurry, there were 
no missions of life and death to make one curse the delay of a 
moment ; if one’s companions were always good-tempered, and 
one’s body was so constituted as to endure jerks and jolts, and 
a sitting posture for hours at a stretch without inconvenience, 
then the old-stage-coach may be conceived to have been a very 
agreeable means of locomotion. But as I have been informed 
by several elderly gentlemen that the weather forty years ago 
was pretty .much the same sort of weather as it now is, that 
strokes of death and strokes of business requiring immense 
despatch happened then as they happen every day — in a word, 
that in most atmospherical, moral, and civic respects the early 
years of this century differed but very little from these its 
maturer days, I can only repeat, in spite of the protests of 
several venerable friends who seem to find most things (even 
while enjoying them) objectionable which are not as aged as 
themselves, that if we have one excuse better than another for 


FOR HANWITGIL 


181 


being on good terms with the times we live in, it is because 
the picturesque old stage-coach makes no condition of our 
daily existence. 

Hanwitch was about fifty miles from London. To-day a 
traveller would be carried the distance in about an hour and 
three-quarters. Holdsworth, starting at half -past seven in the 
morning, would, providing that the coach did not break down or 
overturn, reach the town at about four o’clock in the afternoon. 

He awoke at half-past six, and at once rose. The morning 
was a bright one ; but all the efforts of the sunshine to squeeze 
itself through the wire blinds and dusty panes of the coffee-room 
windows could not avail to communicate the faintest spark of 
cheerfulness to the dingy apartment, with its bare tables and 
blue-colored looking-glass over the chimney, and the old- 
fashioned prints around the walls, suggestive, one knew not 
why, of London milk and discolored blankets. 

The waiter came in, looking dejected, limp, and fluey, and, 
perhaps, to pay Holdsworth out for neglecting to leave word 
at the bar before going to bed that he should want breakfast 
at an unreasonable hour, declaimed a bill of fare, nearly every 
item of which, as Holdsworth named it, he declared could not 
possibly be got ready before half-past eight. Cold ham and 
tea must suffice ; with which order the waiter sleej)ily with- 
drew, and after a long absence returned — when Holdsworth 
was on the point of starting up and leaving the house in the 
full belief that he should miss the coach — bearing a teapot of 
which the contents looked like rain-water, a loaf of bredd as 
hard and slippery as glass under the knife, a lump of butter 
of the color and perfume of soaked cheese, and a ham of 
which what was not bone was brine. 

Very lightly breaking his fast with these things, Holdsworth 
called for his bill, and obtaining the services of the Boots to carry 
his portmanteau, which was all the baggage he had brought 
with him from Australia, walked to the house from which the 
Canterbury coach started. 

It wanted but ten minutes of the starting-time, but no coach 
was visible. However, it was up the yard, and would be 
brought round in a few minutes, the book-keeper said. 4® these 


182 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


few minutes threatened to extend into half an hour, Holdsworth 
entered the bar of the Canterbniy Arms to obtain a biscuit and 
some brahdy-and- water, partly to comj)lete the wretched break- 
fast he had made, and partly to externiinate the vile flavor of 
the tea that lingered in his mouth. 

When he returned, the coach was out, the horses were in, 
several passengers were getting into, or climbing on top of, the 
vehicle ; the coachman, muffled about the throat as though the 
month were November and the air full of snow, stood on the 
pavement smoking a cigar, and surveying the whole picture 
with a lordly and commanding though a somewfflat inflamed 
eye ; and the busy scene was completed by a body of boys and 
men offering newspapers, walking-sticks, knives, combs, and 
broad sheets of songs to the passengers, and striving to drown 
each other’s importunities with loud and ceaseless clamor. 

Off went the coach at last, with Holdsworth by the coach- 
man’s side. The wiieels rattled over the hard roads, the 
houses, in long lines swept by, lost by degrees their frowzy ex- 
teriors and dingy metropolitan aspects, and attempted little 
revelations of bucolic life in small gardens, with glimpses of 
trees in the rear. Then came houses standing alone in grounds 
of their own, cottages purely pastoral in appearance, with the 
noise of farm-yards about them, and their atmosphere sweet- 
ened by the smell of hay and flowers. These dropped away, 
the breeze grew pure and elastic, the country opened in wide 
spaces of waving corn-fields spotted with bright jDoppies, and 
swelling meadow lands and green fields, shaded by groups 
of trees, with here and there a lark whistling in the blue sky, 
and all London lying behind, marking its mighty presence by a 
haze that seemed to stretch for miles and miles, and paled the 
heavens to the hue of its own complexion. 

Holdsworth was such bad company that the coachman soon 
ceased his ‘‘ observations ” touching the different scenes 
through which they passed, and addressed himself to his com- 
panion on the right, a young gentleman who was going as far 
as Chatham, and wfflo lighted several large cigars in less than 
half an hour, pulling at them with hollows in his cheeks, and 
looking at the ash of them, and preserving a very pale face. 


FOR HAN WITCH. 


183 


Holdsworth had something else to think about than the coach- 
man’s refined and classical remarks, delivered from the depth 
of three shawls. The quick rolling of the coach over the 
smooth turnpike-road was inducing an exhilaration that acted 
upon him as good wine acts upon the brain, giving clearness 
and freedom to thought, and causing life to be felt at her most 
secret sources. There was the impression in his mind that he 
had once before travelled on the top of a stage-coach along 
this very road, though when, or under what circumstances, or 
whether he had actually performed the journey, or had read of 
some one else having done it, he could not tell. The scenery 
they were travelling through was altogether delicious, and bet- 
ter than a cordial to a man who had just landed from a three- 
and-a-half months’ voyage at sea. The aspect of the country 
was full of that sober sweetness of general effect which soothes 
the heart with a deep sense of home : of broad yellow tracts 
burnished by the sunshine, of the delicate shadowing of green, 
and the neutral tint of fallow soil ; houses made as dainty by 
distance as pictures on ivory ; great trees spreading their 
broad, abundant leaves over cool spaces of gleaming water ; 
with the animation, now and again, of human life, where men 
worked in the fields, or where children sported before the 
houses, stopping their frolics to cheer the coach, while women 
held babies high in their hands and swayed to the delighted 
plunging of the chubby limbs. 

Holdsworth, however, was by no means a sample of the 
‘‘ outsides” carried by the coach, whatever the deportment of 
the invisible ‘ ‘ insides ” might have been. There were some 
half a dozen people on the roof, including two girls, one 
of whom was decidedly pretty and the other decidedly coquet- 
tish. These young ladies at the first going off had been cease- 
less in the. expression of their fears that, though it was true 
they were up all right, they should never be able to get down 
again. A gentleman with a turn-up nose, expressive of the ut- 
most self-complacency, had taken it upon himself to comfort the 
ladies by remarking that getting down was in every case easier 
than getting up, because the natural tendency of the human 
body was to fall ; at which the ladies had murmured ‘‘ Imperti- 


184 


JOHN HOLDS WORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


nence ! ” and Some people are better seen than heard/’ and 
snch-like scathing phrases — thereby sanctioning the display of 
such wit as the turn-up-nosed gentleman possessed, which he 
exerted with such good effect that the ladies grew crimson 
under uncontrollable fits of laughter. Then the guard struck 
in, and provoked the other outsiders to talk ; and presently a 
large flat bottle was handed around, which had the effect of 
making everybody who put it to his lij)s merrier still. Onward 
rattled the coach with its noisy, laughing burden, flinging 
sounds of life broadcast over the green country, provoking- 
many a pair of slow, bucolic eyes to stare it gravely out of 
sight, raising clouds of dust as the wheels went softly over the 
floury highway, spinning under mile-lengths of trees darken- 
ing the road with twinkling shadows and throbbing with the 
piercing shrilling of innumerable birds buried in the dense 
foliage, catching the hot sunshine again in the open, and 
gleaming like a gigantic looking-glass as it sped gayly forward 
under the broad eye of heaven. 

It was two o’clock when they changed horses for the second 
time at a smart little Kentish town, with a gray ruin right in 
its midst, and an old church hard by it, with one of the snug- 
gest of rectories peeping at the world out of the silence and 
shadow of a rich orchard. Some of the “ insides ” got out 
here and went their ways, and were no more seen. The young- 
ladies on the roof were entreated to alight by the small-nosed 
man, but this they noisily refused to do, the mere idea of such 
a thing causing them to catch hold of each other. The delay, 
however, was a short one. The jaded horses, with streaks of 
white foam upon their i^olished hides were taken out and fresh 
ones put in ; the coachman, smelling strongly of gin and pep- 
permint, climbed into his place, cracked his wdiip, and off 
started the coach followed by a crowd of excited boys, who 
chased it clear of the town and then threw stones after it. 

“Where might you be for, sir?” inquired the coachman of 
Holdsworth, speaking out of his stomach, like a ventriloquist. 

“ Han witch.” 

“ Several stoppages afore Han witch,” said the coachman. 

“ How many ? ” 


FOR HANWITCH. 


185 


“ Vy, there’s Saltwell, Halton, Gadstone, and Soiithborirne.” 

^‘Southbonrne?” 

“ Yes, Sonthbonrne, of course. That’s the willage jist afore 
Han witch.” 

“ Southbourne ! Southbourne ! ” repeated Holdsworth, with 
the old look of bewilderment that invariably entered his face 
when some familiar name was sounded in his ear. 

The coachman glanced at him over his shawls, and said to 
himself quite in the pit of his stomach, “You’re arum ’un, 
you are ! ” 

“ P’raps you ar’n’t acquainted with the road, sir? ” he said. 

“ I think — I am sure I know Southbourne,” replied Holds- 
wwth. “ What sort of a place is it ? ” 

“ Vot sort o’ place? Vy, a willage.” 

“But what kind of village ? ” 

“ All that I know is this, there’s a hinn there vere they 
serves you vith werry good liquor. Slowed if I can tell you 
anything furder. But that’s my veakness, sir. Vould you 
believe me. I’ve drove coaches through that willage for the 
last two-and-twenty year, and may I be biled if I can tell you 
anything about it.” 

Holdsworth sank into deep thought, while the coachman, 
twisting his eyes over his shawls, examined his face and 
clothes with sidelong attention ; then his curiosity being evi- 
dently aroused by something in Holdsworth’s appearance 
which widely differed from the cut and style of the passengers 
he was in the habit of carrying, he said, 

“ Might you be a fuiTiner, sir ? ” 

‘ ‘ No, ” answered Holdsworth. 

“I’ve a brother in Californy. P’raps you might know them 
parts, sir?” 

“ I have just returned from Australia.” 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed the coachman, looking staggered : “ that’s 
a good vays off, ain’t it ? ” 

“ The other side of the world.” 

“ Gor bless me! A queer place, I’ve heerd. Full of con- 
wicks. One of our guards was sent out there t’other day for 
abstracting of money from a wallis.” 


186 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


This reference operating npon his sympathies, he entered 
into a story as long as a newspaper account of the trial : “ How 
beautiful the counsill as hadvocated the pore fellow spoke, 
vich the court vos crowded vith coachmen, who groaned ven- 
hever the hadvocate as vos opposed to the guard began to 
speak; vich behavior, though it warn’t p’raps quite correck, 
vasn’t to be stopped nohows, although the judge looks werry 
fierce, and the counsill kep’ on sayin’, ‘ My lud, if this here 
noise ain’t stopped I’ll throw the case up,’ vich was just the 
thing the coachmen vanted ” (here he made as though he 
would poke Holdsworth in the ribs with the butt-end of his 
whip) ; “ but, lor’ save yer, it was no'^go.” 

Holdsworth paid no attention to this story, his mind being 
engaged in a desperate struggle with memory. Indeed, the 
word “ Southbourne ” had afiected him as no other allusion 
had. Pale, dim phantoms of memory, comparable to nothing 
so much as the phosphorescent outlines which the eye may 
mark fluctuating in the black sea- water, rose and sank in his 
mind ; and, though whispering nothing to his breathless anxi- 
ety, clearly proving that the faculty which he had long be- 
lieved dead was beginning to stir and awaken. 

One by one the towns and villages named by the coachman 
had been passed, and now Southbourne was to come. 

An indescribable anxiety, at once breathless and thrilling, 
suspending, it seemed to him, the very pulsations of his heart, 
making his breath come and go in quick, flerce respirations, 
possessed Holdsworth. 

He held his hands tightly clasped ; all color had fled from 
his face, and his deep-sunk eyes glowed with unnatural fire. 

Repeatedly he muttered to himself : ‘‘ What does this por- 
tend?” 

Already his prophetic soul had caught the light, and seemed 
to know herself, and maddened him and wrung his frame with 
her wild and bitter struggles to proclaim her inspiration and 
pierce her reflected beam through the film that still blinded 
the eye of the mind. 

The sun was still high, and flung its yellow brilliance over 
the fair and gilded prospect. The coach had turned the cor- 


FOR HAN WITCH. 


187 


ner of the long road that led straight as an arrow into South- 
bourne ; and far away at the extremity, in mingled shadow and 
sunshine, the few houses could be seen, with the spire of St. 
George’s church rearing high its flaming vane, and on the left 
the gleam of the river shadowed by many trees. 

“ There’s Southbourne ! ” said the coachman, pointing with 
his whip. 

The dust whirled in a cloud behind the wheels, the guard 
sounded his horn, and with a rush and a rattle the coach drew 
up opposite the Hare and Hounds, a tavern as familiar to 
Holds worth as the sight of his own hand. 

‘‘Hullo!” cried the coachman. “Hi, you there! Help! 
A glass o’ brandy ! Blowed if the gentleman hasn’t fainted ! ” 

“ Fainted ! ” cried the young ladies on the top of the coach, 
leaning forward to catch a sight of his face. 

No, not fainted ; but struck down by a revelation such as, 
had the two young ladies and the small-nosed man and the 
coachman been told the story of it, would have sujDplied them 
with enough matter to keep them talking without intermission 
as long as the coach- wheels turned. 

Memory, coming out of the little house at the bottom of 
the long, familiar thoroughfare, out of the little house that 
turned its shoulder upon the highway and parted it into lanes, 
had rushed upon him like an armed man, and struck him a 
staggering blow. He had dropped under it, and, but for the 
support of the apron over his knees, w^ould have fallen to the 
ground. 

The guard ran into the tavern and returned with a glass 
of brandy, which the coachman put to Holdsworth’s lips. 

“ Thank you, I am better now,” he exclaimed. 

“ Glad to hear it,” said the coachman. 

“ I will get down here.” 

‘ ‘ Aren’t you booked for Hanwitch ? ” exclaimed the guard, 
who imagined that the gentleman’s head wandered. 

“No — this will do — I will go no farther. Help me with 
your hand — thank you.” 

He reached the ground, watched by a group of persons who 


188 


JOHN HOLDSWORTIJ CHIEF MATE. 


made a movement as tlioiigli to support him when they saw 
him swaying to and fro like a drunken man, and staring fixedly 
down the road. But in a moment or two, with a struggle, he 
stood firm. His portmanteau was handed out and carried into 
the bar. The guard took his place ; the coachman, with a 
glance over his shawls to see that Holdsworth stood clear of 
the wheels, jerked the reins, and the coach rattled out of sight. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

SOUTHBOTJENE. 

Eight in the middle of the road stood Holdsworth, casting 
his eyes first to the right, then to the left, then letting them 
rest fixedly on the house at the extremity. 

Here was the scene» the place at last, that was to roll back 
the curtains which hid the past from him, and to proclaim the 
resurrection of the life within him that for years had slept a 
sleep as deep as death. 

There he stood, brought by God’s hand from a far-off world 
into the little Kentish village, where his memories lay heaped, 
where association made a beacon of every humble house to 
lead him with unerring step backward and backward to the 
sweetest, the dearest, of all his memories. 

How remembered, how deeply remembered, the scene ! The 
old tavern on the right, with its swinging sign-board, its bur- 
nished, lattice windows, the great elm-tree spreading its 
branches, like soft fingers, over the red-tiled roof ; the farm- 
house facing it, with the clamor of hidden poultry all about it, 
softened by the cooing of doves ; and the cherry and apple 
trees stretching forth their fruit over the wooden railing, 
and the strings of white linen drying in the open spaces 
among the trees ; the vista of gable-peaked houses, the old 
shops, the grassy land between the houses, the blacksmith’s 
shed, the hens in the roadway, the children on the door-steps. 


80UTI1B0UBNE, 


189 


the women working at the open windows, and the little house 
at the extremity, backed by soft masses of green trees and the 
delicate blue of the afternoon sky. 

He knew his life’s history, as he surveyed this scene, as 
though a voice in his ear were whispering it all to him. The 
chain was too complete not to suggest the unseen links ; the 
throng of associations w^as too manifold and ju’egnant not to 
reveal to his mind the things which his eyes beheld not. 
Swiftly and fiercely — a very whirlwind of logic — thought flew 
over each stepping-stone to the hidden past ; and then he 
knew what he had left, what he was now to seek, and what 
had been the want which his instincts — that deeper life of his 
of which the movements were independent of the senses — had 
never lost sight of. 

When his faintness had passed, a great joy took possession 
of him — an impulse so keenly exhilarating that he could have 
cried aloud in his rapture. But then came a revulsion — a 
deadly fear — of what he knew not, save that its presence 
turned him into ice, and damped his forehead with sweat. 

He was all unconscious of the eyes that were upon him ; but 
some one approaching made him turn his head, and he 
saw several persons watching him curiously from the door of 
the inn, while others, plain country people in smocks and 
highlows, muttered to one another as they stared from the 
pavement. 

“ Won’t you please to step in, sir ? ” said the man who came 
forward, a short, square-faced individual in a black calico 
apron and a white hat. 

‘‘ Wlio lives in that house ? ” returned Holdsworth, pointing 
down the road. 

“ That one yonder, with the chimbley looking this way ? 
Why, I don’t think anybody’s living in it just now, although I 
did hear that it was taken by a party from Ashford. Emily ! ” 
he called. 

A stout, well-looking w^oman elbowed her way out of the 
tavern, and stood on the lower step. 

“The gentleman wants to know who lives in that house at 
the bottom.” 


190 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


‘^It’s to let. Mr. Markham has the letting of it,” answered 
the woman. 

“ His is the shop yonder,” said the man. “ You’ll see ‘Un- 
dertaker and Joiner ’ wrote over the door.” 

“I’ll send a boy to fetch him, if you like,” said the woman. 

“ I’ll goa, missus,” remarked an old man in a long blouse, 
turning about on his stick, in his eagerness to earn a glass of 
ale. 

“No, I don’t want him,” said Holdsworth. 

“ Won’t you step in and rest yourself, sir?” exclaimed the 
woman, exerting the seductive smile with which she was wont 
to greet every passenger who stopped at her door. 

Holdsworth hesitated a moment, as though there were a 
magic in the little distant house that constrained him to keep 
his eyes upon it, and then entered the tavern, heralded by the 
landlady and followed by the landlord. 

The parlor into which he was conducted was as quiet and 
private as he could wish, screened by a red curtain across the 
glass of the door from the bar, with a window opening on to a 
square of ground well stocked with shrubs and vegetables. 
The sunshine streamed into the room, and lighted up the queer 
ornaments on the mantelpiece, the fine old china hanging ux)on 
rows of hooks in a mahogany cabinet, the well-worn carpet, 
the velvet sofa, the black bottles and glittering tankards on 
the shelves of the sideboard. 

The landlord went behind the bar to look after some be- 
smocked gentry who were drinking in front of it, leaving his 
wife to attend to Holdsworth. 

“ What might you like to order, sir ? ” she inquired, present- 
ing herself at a side-door. 

He asked her to bring him some wine and biscuits, saying 
that he had no appetite now, but would dine or sup later on. 
He looked at her very attentively as he spoke, with an idea in 
his mind that he had seen her before. 

She went away, and he left his seat and paced the room vuth 
a wild look of distress on his face, and bitter anxiety and fear 
in his heart. Once he snatched up his hat and advanced to the 
door, but hesitated, and resumed his agitated walk. His 


80UTHB0URNE. 


191 


feelings were those of a man just awakened to consciousness 
from the effects of a blow that had stunned him. His body 
trembled, his lips worked, and he held his hands squeezed 
tightly together. His sufferings were indeed terrible. He 
looked back upon the blank of five years and recoiled before 
the conjectures his heart prompted as to the things which had 
happened in that time. Sometimes his impulse was to rush 
forth and cry aloud for Dolly, and then a deadly chill came over 
him, and he shut his eyes and beat aside his thoughts, as 
though they were something tangible and apart from him, with 
his hand. 

When the door opened, he bit his lip to control himself, and 
kept his back turned upon the woman in feigned inspection of 
a print upon the wall. As she was about to withdraw, he 
looked at her and said, 

‘ ‘ Have you lived long in Southbourne ? ” 

“Yes, sir, many years.” 

He seated himself and drank a glass of wine. 

“ How many years ? ” 

“ Oh, twelve, thirteen. Ah, more like fifteen years, sir ! ” 

“So long ! Then you know all the people here ? ” 

“Yes, sir, I dare say I do,” answered the woman, putting 
her hands under her apron, and examining Holdsworth’s face 
and clothes with great curiosity. 

“ Wlio last lived in that house at the bottom of the 

street ? ” 

‘ ‘ You mean the one you was askin’ my husband about ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Mr. Fairchild, the butcher, after he sold his business about 
two years ago. ” 

“ Who before Mr. Fairchild? ” 

“ It stood empty a while after Mrs. Holdsworth left it.” 

‘ ‘ Where is she now ? ” 

“ Livin’ at Han witch, along with her husband, Mr. Conway, 
the dentist.” 

The woman’s eyes, when she made this answer, were on the 
garden ; when she looked again at Holdsworth his face was 
turned from her. 


192 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH CHIEF MATE. 


“Did you know any of the parties, sir, as you’re asking 
about ? ” she inquired. 

He did not answer her, and she, thinking that he had not 
heard her, continued, 

“I was servant along with poor Mr. Newcome before the 
old gentleman died, and saw a good deal of Mrs. Holdsworth, 
as I always call her ; for, somehow, I can never bear to think 
of her as Mrs. Comvay, for her heart never went with her hand 
when she married that gentleman, as I can bear witness to, for 
I was at the wedding, and never saw a poor body cry as she 
did. She and her grandmother, old Mrs. Flemming, was often 
at the rectory — But I beg pardon, sir ; you was speaking of 
the house. I can’t remember who had it before Mrs. Holds- 
worth. It’s a long time ago. ” 

Holdsworth raised his head. 

Up to the moment of her speaking of Dolly he had not 
known his own name ; all other memories had returned to him, 
save that. His face was very white, but there was a strong 
expression in it. If the woman were to talk for another twelve 
hours, she could add nothing more to what she had already 
said. Dolly’s death he had expected as he had expected a 
hundred other nameless possibilities, when memory swooped 
upon him and set him peering over the edge of the chasm that 
separated the Then from the Now ; but not her marriage. Not 
that. In all the hours he had passed in the open boat at sea, 
beholding death striking down his companions about him, 
suffering the exquisite torture of thirst, the yet more exquisite 
X)ang of hopelessness, there was no moment of agony in all 
that time comparable to the agony that now wrenched him. It 
might be one of those terrible experiences which break the 
heart or transform the nature, but it gave to or found in Holds- 
worth a quality, of endurance that enabled him to front the 
extremity with a face of marble. 

When next he spoke his voice was low, but without a tremor 
in it. 

“ I am interested in Mrs. Conway and her old grandmother. 
Tell me what you know about them.” 

‘ ‘ Surely, sir, you don’t bring news of Mr. Holdsworth — of 


SOUTHBOURNE. 


193 


tlie fine young man that went to sea and was shipwrecked ? ” 
inquired the woman, with a face of excitement, and staring- 
hard, as if she were about to receive some astounding news. 

/‘No, no ! ” he answered, almost under his breath ; and then 
he added, “ Tell me what you know of the widow.” 

“I remember Mr. Holdsworth well,” said the woman, her 
speech answering to her mood, “ A handsomer young fellow 
I never saw. He used often to be at the rectory with his wife, 
and the love between them was something beautiful. How 
she ever had the heart to let him leave her I never could 
guess. But he went and was drowned, and left the young 
thing without a friend or a shilling in the wide w'orld, God 
help her ! and though I said it was almost stupid her mariy- 
ing Mr. Conway, remembering what love there -was between 
her and Mr. Holdsworth, yet I have always believed it w^as 
for her child’s sake she married the dentist, for they were in 
desperate want wdien he courted her, and must have starved 
for want gf help.” 

“You are speaking of Holds worth’s child ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. A bright little thing, and fair as a lily. I saw 
her the other day wdien I w^as over at Hanwitch. She was with 
her mamma, and I never see such a likeness as there is be- 
tween her and her |)Oor drowmed papa. But you’re askin’ 
about old Mrs. Flemming. Why, she died four years ago. 
She was very old, and w^ent ofi* quite peaceful, they said. What 
with Mrs. Flemming’s death, and her never getting any news of 
her husband, and having a tiny little baby to find food for, I 
do think the poor young lady’s heart nearly broke. I never 
heard exactly how the money matter w^as wdth her, but I be- 
lieve that when Mrs. Flemming died she would have nothing to 
live on but her husband’s pay, wdiich was stopped wdien he 
was given up for lost. Mr. Newcome w^as very kind, and paid 
her rent, and helped her along w^hile he lived; and then Mr. 
Conway saw her ; but it w^as a long time before she would marry 
him, long after the poor old rector was dead and gone, and she 
found that taking in needle-work w-as w^orse than going on the 
parish. I often think of her — I do, indeed, sir — w^aiting day 
after day for her husband, who was never to come home. I’d 
13 


194 


JOHN HOLDSWORTIJ CHIEF MATE, 


rather, myself, have married anybody than a sailor. There’s 
no telling, when once they go, w^hether they’ll ever come back 
again. They’re worse nor soldiers for that.” 

Here the woman, suddenly conceiving that she had talked 
quite enough, and perhaps a little too much, dropped a cour- 
tesy and left the room ; but came back again to ask two ques- 
tions : At what hour would the gentleman please to dine ? 
and would he like to have a bedroom in her house ? She 
could recommend her bedrooms. Her linen was clean as snow. 

“ I will tell you presently,” answered Holdsworth. “ I 
have not yet decided ui)on my movements.” 

“ There’s a nice plump fowl ” 

“Yes, cook me that by seven o’olock,” said Holdsworth, 
who was feverishly impatient to be left alone. 

She closed the door, and Holdsworth leaned his temples on 
his hands and fixed his heavy eyes on the bare table, taking 
the attitude of a student striving to master some difficult 
problem. 

For many minutes he held this posture, presently lifted his 
head, and looked about him ; then took his hat and went out. 

The landlord behind the bar made him a low bow, and 
offered his services to show him over the village. Holdsworth 
declined his offer with a “Thank you,” and walked into the 
road. He glanced over his shoulder suspiciously as he ad- 
vanced, disliking the inquisitive stare wuth which he had been 
followed through the bar of the inn by the people drinking 
there, but no one watched him. He held a stick on which he 
leaned as he moved like an infirm man, and often he paused 
and gazed around him. The people in the roadway or in the 
houses eyed him as he passed with the curiosity a stranger 
seldom fails to excite in small, unfrequented places, but 
he took no notice of them ; his mind was intent on vivifying 
the impressions it was receiving with old memories, and ad- 
justing the ideas which had been restored to him out of the 
dark and secret hiding-places of the past. 

Few changes had been made in the aspect of the little vil- 
lage to embarrass the picture which his recovered memory had 
submitted to him. Some alterations in the external form of 


SOUTIIBOURNE, 


195 


one or two shops, and two freshly bnilt houses on the left-hand 
side facing the blacksmith’s shed, were the only new features 
in the familiar scene of this quaint, broad thoroughfare. 

His steps grew more reluctant, his face took a sharper ex- 
pression of pain, though never losing its characteristic of hard- 
ness and severity, as he drew near to his old home. He 
forced himself forward, and, when abreast, halted and looked 
at it. 

The windows were blindless, the garden showed signs of 
long neglect, and a board nailed to a post leaned toward the 
road, bearing the announcement in j^ainted letters that the 
house was to let. A row of cobwebs garnished the wood-work 
of the gate, and glistened in the sunshine ; the bare rooms, 
visible through the windows, looked cheerless and inhospitable ; 
the window-glass was dirty, and some of the panes in the 
kitchen-window were broken. The grass about the house w^as 
tall and vividly green. That window, looking toward the 
trees between the lanes, belonged to Dolly’s room. There 
w^ere white, soft curtains to it in those days, and the glass w^as 
pure and transparent as spring- water. That room on the left 
was the sitting-room. There they had taken their meals, there 
they had played forfeits, had hunted the slipper, had made the 
walls ring with innocent laughter. He remembered the old 
grandmother’s placid smile, the rector’s kindly jokes, his 
Dolly’s sweet face, throwing a light of purity and beauty 
about her. And under the sill were the dead branches of the 
clematis, still held to the wall by the pieces of black leather 
Dolly’s own hand had nailed. Such humble signs make grief 
sharper than large memorials. 

He stood leaning upon his stick, losing all sense of the pres- 
ent in this vision, of the past. His thoughts, taking their de- 
parture from the time when he first fitted out that house as a 
home for Dolly, fiowed regularly downw^ard. He was a bride- 
gToom again, and his wife w^as at his side and her eyes upon 
his, and their hands clasped. Now the shadow of separation 
that was to darken them presently was felt ; and then came 
the eve of his departure, thronged with the memory of kisses 
sweet and bitter, of tears and broken prayers, and brave hopes 


196 


JOim HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


battling with sullen misgivings. He was now on board the 
Meteor and now in the open boat, surrounded by the dying, 
and himself suffering tortures it broke him down to recall ; 
and now he was in Australia, striving with memory, which 
would yield no answer to his passionate prayers. But the 
finger of God pointed the way to his old home ; and now he 
was returning to England, with his past still hidden in gloom, 
but with his heart not unhopeful of the morning that was to 
break after the long darkness of the night. And, finally, with 
the old village of Southbourne before him, came the rush of 
memory — the brief exultation — the spasm of fear — the terror 
that held him mute — the disclosure that showed him his wife 
less his than had he traversed all the desolate miles of water 
only to kneel by her grave ! 

Tears would have relieved him, but he could not weep. He 
turned and moved slowly away, stopping again and again to 
look back at the little empty house, while sobs convulsed him, 
and a sense of supreme desolation and friendlessness weighed 
him down. 


CHAPTER XXm. 

KEFLECTIONS. 

The fowl dished up by the landlady and seiwed upon fine 
linen was plump and juicy, and aromatic enough to re-excite 
the appetite of an alderman after a Mansion House dinner ; 
but Holdsworth hardly touched it. The woman looked vexed 
as she removed it, for the neglect of such a dainty was as good 
as a spoken disparagement of her skill as a cook. She set a 
fine cheese, fresh from the farm-house over the way, upon the 
table, and butter from the same dairy, firm and sweet-smelling, 
as butter should be ; but these were left untasted. 

“ I don’t know who he may be,” she whispered to her hus- 
band outside ; “ but if he don’t make a better dinner than this 
every day, it’s no wonder his body’s a shadow.” 

The setting sunshine streamed into the little parlor in which 


REFLECTIONS. 


197 


Holdsworth sat, and enriched the room with its vivid crimson 
light ; the soft evening breeze wafted pleasant perfumes 
through the open window, and in the air was the tender and 
delightful peace which falls with an appreciable hush over 
little country villages, where the sinking of the sun is the sig- 
nal for rest. 

Holdsworth had made up his mind to sleep in Southbourne 
that night. He needed the silence and the solitude the little 
inn promised him, that he might meditate upon the steps he 
should now take. 

The feverish misery that had been born in him by the land- 
lady’s story was in some measure tranquillized, and he had 
now the power at least to think with tolerable clearness. And 
yet he was sorely perplexed as he sat with his head resting on 
his hand, and his weary eyes fixed on the little garden out- 
side. Impulses were governing him that made his mind in- 
cline from side to side like a pendulum. Had Mr. Newcome 
been alive — the kind and good old rector, whom he recalled 
with love — he would have gone to him, avow^ed himself, and 
entreated his counsel. 

He felt that Dolly was dead to him. He felt this, though 
no words that he had at his command would have enabled him 
to explain his ideas. His owm grand sense of honor witnessed 
this truth, that she had married another man in full belief 
that he — -John Holdsworth — was dead ; and he recognized and 
appreciated the force of the overwhelming claims of the moral 
obligation imposed on him to leave her belief undisturbed. 
Why ? Because its disturbance would generate a heavy bur- 
den of shame, would make her practically false to both men, 
and stain her nature with a sin whose hue would not be the 
less dark in the sight of the world because her conscience had 
no share in it. 

Such instinctive perception of the high needs of the seldom- 
paralleled situation his fate had placed him in could only have 
possessed a man of deep honor, great humanity, and rare un- 
selfishness. 

But his child ! 

The child of his own passionate love for Dolly. There was 


198 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


the magnetic power that drew all his inclinations away from 
the silent command of honor. 

To see her— to behold himself renewed in a sweet child’s 
face — to j)ress his lips once to her cheek — once only, if never- 
more ! 

Oh ! not once — not once only ! To dwell near her, to have 
her in his sight, to watch them both and live out the years 
that should be allotted him in secret contemplation of the joy, 
the sacred j)leasures, the divine emotions embodied in this 
woman and her babe ; happinesses which had been broken 
away from his life — could not this be ? 

He started up and looked at himself in the glass over the 
mantel-shelf. Had suffering wrought in his face to such poor 
•purpose that even the eye of love could pierce through the 
sunken mask ? His child knew him not — and Dolly, deeming 
him dead, and holding him a thing of the iiTeclaimable past, 
could not behold — could never imagine that she beheld — in 
that bowed figure, that bearded face, those hollow eyes, that 
hair with patches of gray all over it, the handsome, vigorous, 
upright, clear-eyed man whom she had called husband. 

Husband ! And she had left him ! 

Stop ! PaSvSages of the landlady’s story echoed in his ears ; 
how the poor young lady was starving ; how she had a tiny 
baby to support ; how the workhouse seemed better to her 
than the hopeless, scanty produce of the needle ; how she held 
back, reluctant to give her hand to the man who wished to 
marry her ; how she had wept when her hand was given. 

Oh, husband ! oh, lover ! though to the past only those 
tibles now belong ; by your own sufferings, remember hers ! 
By your own miseiy, when, feeling yourself dying alone on the 
great deep, your physical torments yielded to the fiercer tor- 
tures of your heart when you thought of your wife praying for 
him whom you said to yourself she shall never see. again, 
remember her ! pity her ! Was his imagination so poor that 
he could not find it in him to make out of the landlady’s brief 
tale a pregnant, bitter picture of his wife’s trials ? Not so ! 
To such a heart as his one hint of misery would bring with it 
many piteous details. There was infinite anguish in the pic- 


HANWITCH. 


199 


ture his fancy drew ; but he forced himself to contemplate it, 
that the jealousy, the disappointment, the despair of unfulfilled 
hope might melt out of his heart, and leave it a fit shrine for 
the consecration of the two images which the uncontrollable 
will of his humanity as a father and a husband declared should 
be placed there. 

His fingers had stolen over his face as he stood before the 
looking-glass. A long time he thus remained, while the sun 
went down behind the trees in the far-off fields, and the twi- 
light stole softly into the room and made his figure visionary. 
When he withdrew his hands from his eyes they were wet ; 
but the one star shining clearly in the dark blue overhead had 
dawned out of the light to witness a fairer sight than the sun 
had shone upon — a face from which all vestige of hardness and 
severity had passed, eyes heavy with tears upturned to God’s 
kingdom, and lips whispering a prayer for help, for courage, 
for counsel to aid the resolution of his heart, intent upon a 
noble self-sacrifice that should yet not remove it from the 
sphere of all that it held dearest on earth. 


CHAPTEE XXIV. 

HANWITCH. 

Hanwitch is nowhere seen to greater advantage than from 
the summit of the little hill that flanks it on the west. Here, 
if you are an epicure in your enjoyment of what is picturesque 
in scenery, you will take your stand at sunset, while the splen- 
dor still flushes the heavens, and the country all around is tinted 
with a delicate crimson haze. In this fairy light Hanwitch, 
from where you stand, will resemble some architectural dream ; 
for the serene sky gives an ideality to the proportions which are 
magnified by the soft, combining shadows, and peace broods in 
the streets. The noble church dedicated to St. James towers 
in the midst of the houses ; its spire glows with the red fire 
which a little while before had bathed the whole pile and kin- 


200 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


died brilliant stars in its long and narrow windows ; and all 
about the church rise and fall the roofs of closely grouped 
houses, manifold in color, with lines of thin blue smoke mount- 
ing straight into the sky. The town lies backed with wooded 
scenery, and the picturesque outlines of the houses take a new 
detail of beauty from the relief they give to the soft dark 
masses of trees and lighter-colored fields which make up the 
farther landscape. And as you watch, a human interest will be 
communicated to the town by the breaking out here and there 
of little yellow lights. Darkness soon falls when the crimson 
flush pales upon the sky ; but where you stand daylight is still 
around, mellowed into deepest, richest beauty of color, and so 
lingering ere it fades into the gray and gloom of twilight. 

The towm has been enlarged since the days to which this 
story belongs ; but elderly people are Imng whose love for 
the old High Street scarcely reconciles them to the ‘‘improve- 
ments ” which have been made in its aspect. Surveyors and 
local boards press sorely upon gentle prejudices. These elderly 
people remember the row of antique houses where the big 
bank building no^v stands. They remember certain xDiimitive 
shops, the windows of 'which were furnished with diamond- 
shaped panes of glass that discolored to the eye the wares ex- 
posed for sale within. They remember the picturesque alley 
out of the High Street, -with a cottage at the end of it that had 
a green porch ; it looked from its cool retreat upon the narrow 
slice of the main thoroughfare with its passengers flitting like 
shadows past the brief opening. And I myself can recall the 
wonderful effect of light and shadow in that tranquil embra- 
sure when the evenings lengthened, and as I beheld it once — 
a maid-servant, picturesquely attired in a red petticoat, lolling 
within the porch, her hands upon her hips, laughing at a dog 
that stood on its hind-legs begging; the figures shadowed, 
the windows about burning with the light of the setting sun, 
the pavement a deep gray. 

In Holdsworth’s time, the veliicles and passengers were in 
perfect keeping with the venerable and faded but dignified 
aspect of the old street. The towns-people still lingered be- 
hind the transition epoch of that by-gone day, and held for the 


HAN WITCH. 


201 


most X3art tenaciously to the costumes and the indolence of 
their fathers. 

The town wus about an hour’s ’walk from Southbourne. 
After quitting the handful of houses which formed the village, 
Hanwitch came upon you as a metropolis. To describe it in 
homely guide-book fashion : It had two good churches and a 
public square full of evergreens, rock- work, and stone images ; 
several snug inns, one wide street and a quantity of narrow 
ones ; a town hall, a market-place, a prison, and a town- crier ; 
a large number of old ladies and fat poodles, invalids, sedan- 
chairs, and camp-stools. In olden times — and now I am talk- 
ing of the eighteenth century — it had held some sort of 
position as a third-rate inland watering-place ; but what had 
become of the springs which had brought the gout, the va- 
pors, and the spleen from places as distant as London to drink, 
the oldest inhabitant never could remember. But one thing 
was certain : there was no lack of water in the place. A river 
ran close to it, and from this stream meandered some crystal 
streamlets which ran right into it. And where the river was, 
the scenery was exquisite in summer — cool, deep, and leafy, 
with a bridge at each end of the town, a little landing-stage, a 
punt or two, and midway between the bridges a cluster of 
trees on either bank, with huge gnarled trunks and roots which 
ran naked for many feet along the ground, wLile, high above, 
their branches mingled and formed a tunnel for the water to 
flow under. Here the trout would leap ; here the water-rat 
W’ould sneak from its earthy chamber and break the tide into 
thin ripples as it noiselessly made for the opposite shore ; here 
the sunshine would fall in threads through the leaves and gild 
the black, long-legged insects on the surface of the water. 

Ten o’clock was striking when Holdsworth was driven into 
Hanwitch by the landlord of the Southbourne inn, who was rich 
enough to own a horse and gig. The drive had been a very 
short one, and in the landlord’s opinion seven-and-sixpence 
had never been more easily earned. The gig was stopped at 
the door of the Hanwitch Arms, and Holdsworth got out. 
Then came a porter, who nodded pleasantly to the owner of 
the gig, and hoisted the portmanteau on his shoulder. 


202 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


“My respecks to the governor, Joe. How is he? ” 

“Pretty middlin’ ! How’s yourself?” 

“Why, I can’t say as I’m quite the thing. The weather’s 
been rayther agin my rheumatiz. Wish you good-mornin’, 
sir.” 

And, vdth this farewell to Holdsworth, the landlord drove 
himself away. 

Holdsworth’s plans had been fully settled by him the night 
before ; and one part of them, was that he should put up at 
some inn at Hanwitch while he made inquiries of deep interest 
to himself, and obtained a lodging. Having followed the por- 
ter into the bar and ordered a bed for the night, he re-entered 
the street. 

His emotions as he first began to walk were conflicting and 
painful. He was now in the town where his wife lived ; any 
moment might bring them face to face, and the wildest anxiety 
to see her was mixed up with a sensation of shrinking fear of 
the encounter. He stared eagerly at the people, and now and 
again, when a little child passed, his heart beat rapidly, and 
he felt his blood leave his face. But he mastered himself 
soon, repeatedly muttering, as a reassuring argument, that, 
were they to meet, Dolly would not know him. 

He was in the main street, w^alking slowly, and helping his 
step with a stick, not more from habit than from necessity, for 
he was frequently seized with a weakness in the legs which 
would sometimes oblige him to stop, or seat himself if a seat 
W'ere at hand. His object now was to find out where Dolly 
lived ; a question he would not ask the landlady at South- 
bourne, lest, added to the inquiries he had already made, it 
should excite her suspicion and set her surmising. 

He noticed a small chemist’s shop opposite, and, his mind 
establishing a friendly connection between drugs and dentistry, 
he crossed and entered. A bald-headed man in spectacles re- 
ceived him with a bow. 

“Can you tell me where Mr. Conway, the dentist, lives ? ” 

The chemist, who knew perfectly well, scratched his ear and 
seemed to reflect. He drew^ teeth himself, and was not dis- 
posed to furnish a rival with a patient if he could help it. 


HAN WITCH. 


203 


“ I know the name, sir, and — might I ask if yon want any- 
thing done to your teeth ? ” 

“ No, I merely wish to know where Mr. Conway lives.” 

“ It’s not for me to speak ill of a brother i)ractitionei\ and 
as I sha’n’t mention names, no harm can be done,” said the 
chemist, with his eye on Holdsworth’s mouth ; ‘ ‘ but I do say 
that it’s a pity people should start in a business, requiring as 
much skill as the highest branches of surgery, without know- 
ing the difference between an eye and a wisdom tooth, and 
drinking to that degree that their hands tremble like the win- 
dow’s of a coach in full tear.” 

‘ ‘ Does Mr. Conway drink ? ” 

“I name no names,” replied the chemist, assuming an in- 
jured expression of face. “I should be. sorry to take aw^ay 
any man’s character, not to speak of the bread out of his 
mouth, though there are some people not quite so particular 
as me in that matter, and will start lies which should make 
’em afraid to go to bed. All that I say is, that if I had a 
toothache, and wanted to get my jaw broke and my gum tore 
out, I’d go to a certain person livin’ not a day’s w’alk from this 
shop, and ask him to look at my tooth.” 

Saying which, he nodded vigorously, and, taking up a bottle, 
began to mould a piece of blue paper over the cork. 

‘ ‘ Where does this Mr. Conway live ? ” inquired Holdsworth, 
who judged that there might be a good deal more of profes- 
sional animus than truth in the chemist’s observations. 

‘‘I believe,” replied the chemist, sulkily vouchsafing the 
information which he could scarcely longer evade, ‘‘that the 
party you refer to lives in the Ellesmere Koad. He did yes- 
terday ; but some persons in this world are so deioendent on 
their landlords that there’s no tellin’ what’s going to happen 
to ’em to-morrow. ” 

Thanking this very good-natured and remarkably ingenuous 
chemist for his direction, Holdsworth quitted the shop and 
walked up the street. He asked a butcher-boy the way to Elles- 
mere Road, and was told to keep straight on until he came to a 
“Methody’s chapel, ven he’d see a turnin’, vich ’ud be the road 
he ast for.” 


204 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTH, CHIEF JI ATE. 


The Methodist chapel was a good distance off, and as Holds- 
worth’s pace was slow, he had plenty of leisure for reflection, 
which was bitter enough ; for, strive as he might to waive the 
chemist’s gossip as mere trade scandal and jealousy, his mind 
persisted in fastening on it, and turning it about, and coining 
deep anxiety out of it. 

If this Mr. Conway were the drunkard the chemist affirmed 
him to be, and the pauper too — for the sarcasm about “ persons 
being dependent on their landlords ” had not been lost — what 
kind of life was Dolly and his child leading ? He frowned, and 
felt his hand tighten on the handle of his stick ; but a milder 
IDersuasion grew in him, and he forced his mind away from the 
subject. 

So bright a morning as it was would bring forth many peo- 
ple ; and the High Street was tolerably well filled with pedes- 
trians, and old peo^Dle in bath-chairs, wheeled along the gutters 
for fear of the horses, and nurses dragging children by the 
hand, and wagons, and tradesmen’s traps. The early coach from 
Canterbury came thundering along the street, the guard blow- 
ing his horn and causing house-windows to fly open, and heads 
to protrude, and a handkerchief, or, maybe, a duster here and 
there, to be waved in coy recognition of the hand-kissing of 
certain spimce and finely attired gentlemen on the top of the 
vehicle. 

But, varied and cheerful as the scene was, Holdsworth had 
no eyes but for the women and children he met, at whom he 
darted quick, eager glances, which must have sent some of the 
women tripping along with a sincere comdction that they had 
met with one admirer, at all events, that morning. 

He passed the market-place with its stalls loaded with garden 
produce, and clean little shops submitting a tempting array 
of plump fowls, geese, sides of bacon, legs of pork, and strings 
of sausages ; and in about twenty minutes’ time reached the 
Methodist chapel, and turned into the Ellesmere Koad. 

A short, broad road, with the sun-lighted country beyond ; 
on either side, small, newly built villas, with now and again a 
house presenting a more venerable aspect. There was grass in 
the roadway, and one or two of the villas had placards in their 


HAN WITCH. 


205 


windows. In the front garden of one of the nearer houses an 
old gentleman with an inflamed face, and a white handkerchief 
over his head, was plying a rake. No other person was visible ; 
but, when Holds worth had advanced a few steps, a woman came 
out of a gate and approached him. His heart came into his 
throat, and he stood stock-still. She drew near, but she was 
not Dolly. She glanced at him as she passed, struck, maybe, 
by his pale face and the singular mixture of old age and youth 
which his appearance and figure suggested. 

He breathed deeply and walked forward, glancing to right 
and left of him. 

The last house but one on the left was the house he wanted. 
A brass plate inscribed with Conway’s name and calling was 
fixed to the iron railings, and over the door w’as a lamp fur- 
nished with blue and red glass. 

Holdsworth dared scarcely glance at it. When his eye en- 
countered the name he turned cold, and felt the damp perspi- 
ration suflusing his forehead. 

He came back hurriedly, with the bare impression on his mind 
of a small house with the upper blinds drawm, and with an 
untended garden in the front. 

He returned to the main entrance of the road, stop]3ed, 
looked back, and then slowiy retraced his steps. 

There was a house of an older fashion than any of the others 
on the right-hand side, about midway ; one that had evidently 
taken root there many years before the little villas had gath- 
ered themselves together to intercept its view and violate its 
i:)astoral solitude. Its door-w'ay was sheltered by a roomy 
porch, with creepers clambering up its trellised supporters ; 
its darkling windows had, the burnished glitter upon them that 
is peculiar to old glass ; its eaves were caj)acious enough to 
accommodate a whole^colony of swallows, and it had a fair 
piece of ground stretching away at its back. The bright brass 
knocker on the green door, the white door-steps, the purity of 
the Tvlndow-glass, and the spotlessness of the window drapery 
afforded an excellent guarantee of the housewifely qualities of 
the inmates. In one of the windows hung a card. Holds- 
worth opened the gate and knocked. 


20G 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTII, CHIEF MATE. 


“I should like to see your apartments,” he said to the cheer- 
ful-faced, middle-aged woman who had promptly replied to his 
summons. 

‘‘Certainly, sir ; please to walk in.” 

She threw open the door of a long sitting-room, smelling of 
lavender and mignonette, and furnished with worked chairs, 
old china, a tall wooden clock with a febrile tick, a hearth- 
rug decorated with blue and yellow roses in wool, and a sour, 
squeezed-looking book-case which seemed to hold sundry folios 
under protest, and to threaten the instant ejection of a number 
of small books on the top shelves, which leaned one against 
another, some of them gaping, apparently in the last extremity 
of terror. 

“ For yourself, sir ? Or might there be children ? ” 

“For myself.” 

“ Why, then, sir,” exclaimed the woman, with great alacrity, 
“ I think I can accommodate you. You can have this room and 
a bedroom just over it, and the use of the piauner in the next 
room when you see eomx:)any, for fourteen shillings a week.” 

“That will do,” said Holdsworth. 

The woman, smiling like clock-work, proceeded to inform 
him that she was a widow, and had nobody else in the house 
but her mother, 'who 'svas very aged and silly-like, and only 
left her room, which was up-stairs, once a week for a turn in 
the garden ; that anything more peaceful than her house was 
never known, and that, if the gentleman was studious, he would 
never be interrupted with noises. 

She then led him up-stairs to the bedroom, which 'vus as 
comfortable as any man could wish. 

On their return to the sitting-room, Holdsworth, who was 
tired, asked permission to rest himself, and sat dowm near the 
window which overlooked the road, where he could just obtain 
a glimpse of Mr. Conway’s house. 

He broke away from the overpowering thoughts which the 
sense of the near presence of his wife and child forced upon 
him, and, steadying his voice, turned to the woman, who stood 
at the door, and asked her if she knew any of the people living 
around. 


HANWITGH. 


207 


“ Why, sir, I know most of my neighbors by name, though 
I can’t say as e’er a one of ’em are friends of mine.” 

‘‘ I noticed a dentist’s house just now, over the way. What 
sort of business can he do in such a road as this ? ” 

“Oh, you’re speaking of Mr. Conway ! ” she exclaimed, with 
a shake of the head. ‘ ‘ It’s his own fault if he don’t do a good 
business, for I hear that he is pretty clever at making teeth and 
drawing of them, and the likes of that ; but he don’t seem to 
have no patients, and I know why ; but it’s not for me to med- 
dle in other folks’ concerns.” 

“Why?” 

“ I suppose you’re no friend of his, sir ? ” she said. 

“ I never saw the gentleman in my life.” 

“Well, then, to speak plainly, he drinks ; and it’s pretty well 
known; and so there’s no wonder gentle-folks won’t go near him. ” 

Holdsworth forced a look of unconcern into his face as he 
asked, 

“ Is he married ? ” 

“Oh yes, sir; and a sweet, dear creature his wife is — Mrs. 
Holdsworth as- was. Hers is a sad history. She lived at a 
place called Southbourne — maybe you know it — it’s an hour’s 
walk from here ; and I was told her story by Mrs. Campion, as 
used to keep a green-grocer’s shop in that village and served 
most of the gentry about. She — I’m speaking of Mrs. Con- 
way — lost her husband at sea, and married the present gentle- 
man, two or three years afterward. Mrs. Campion said she 
was driven to it by want o’ the bare necessaries of life,” added 
the woman, in a subdued voice. 

Holdsworth was silent, 

“I don’t think,” continued the woman, “that she leads a 
very happy life. We sometimes has a chat together when we 
meet out o’ doors, and she’s the civilest, sweetest young thing 
I ever knew. But ! ” she exclaimed, catching herself up, “ all 
this is no business of mine ; and I hope, sir, you’ll think none 
the worse of me for gossiping about strangers’ affairs. I was 
strivin’ to answer your questions, sir.” 

“ Thank you,” said Holdsworth, rising, but keeping his back 
to the window. “ Can you receive me to-morrow ? ” 


20S 


JOHN n0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ Oh yes, sir ; at any time you’re pleased to come.” 

“ My name is Hampden. I shall sleep to-night at the Han- 
vvifcch Arms. Here are a couple of sovereigns, which will serve 
you as a security for my taking your rooms. I leave myself in 
your hands, and have no doubt I shall be comfortable.” 

The woman took the money with a courtesy, thinking to her- 
self that she had never met with a more polite and considerate 
gentleman. Holdsworth left the house. He cast a swift 
glance at the villa wit^ the plate upon the railing, and then 
hurried toward the town. 


CHAPTEE XXV. 

IN THE ELLESMERE ROAD. 

Holdsworth spent the greater part of the evening in writing 
a letter to Mr. Sherman. At twelve o’clock next day he was 
an inmate of Mrs. Parrot’s house in the Ellesmere Eoad. 

In his walk to the lodgings he had met only strange faces, 
one or two of which looked after him, struck, perhaps, by his 
keen, fugitive glance, his slow pace, that stole along the 
ground, and his depressed head, as though there were a shame 
in his heart that made the daylight painful. 

Mrs. Parrot fussed about him for some time, and tired him 
with an account of the articles she had purchased for him. 
Her memory was slow, and her capacity of reckoning very in- 
different ; hence it took her twenty minutes to account for the 
expenditure of twelve shillings. Happily, it was her mother’s 
day for walking in the garden, and Holdsworth could see the 
old lady — a mere wisp of a figure, in ancient black satin reach- 
ing to her ankles and clinging to her legs, a nose like the 
Duke of Wellington’s, and a chin like Punch’s — hobbling 
along a gravel-walk, looking with afflicting agitation around 
her, and coughing like a rattle, as a signal to her daughter, 
who, when she had done with her accounts, hurried out. 

The control Holdsworth had kept upon himself while Mrs. 


IK THE ELLESMERE ROAD. 


209 


Parrot remained in the room he could now put aside ; indeed, 
the suffering caused him bj his pent-up agitation imperatively 
demanded that the emotion should have play. Now he could 
walk hastily to and fro the room, and then fling himself into a 
chair, clasping his hands tightly, and then rise and stand be- 
fore the window and send glances passionate and shrinking at 
the house occupied by the Conways. 

Now that he was close to his wife, now that any moment 
might reveal her walking past his window, with his child, per- 
chance, at her side, he dreaded lest the unparalleled situation 
he had forced himself into would prove too heavily charged 
with cruel conditions for him to bear. Never once then, never 
once afterward, did the vaguest impulse possess him to go 
forth and declare himself and claim her. No ! A sense of hon- 
or that was inexorable, since it prohibited the faintest echo of 
the soul’s secret, passionate yearning to make itself audible, 
had decreed his silence and enforced the obedience of inclina- 
tion. 

The only concession granted was the enjoyment of such 
ghostly and barren pleasure as his heart could find in the 
knowledge of the close neighborhood of the two who were so 
dear to him. Oh, bitter waking of memory, to recall him from 
the sunny vision of the old times, when his joy was complete 
and love a permanent possession to enrich his nature with all 
gracious and generous emotions, to thrust him into the gray 
and bleak twilight of a loveless and desolate life, which the re- 
covered power could only embitter by recurrence to the things 
that were lost ! 

His eyes wandered ceaselessly and restlessly toward the 
window. From time to time people went by with the slow, 
aimless step of persons who walk for no other end than exer- 
cise. An old gentleman, with a white mustache and a dark 
skin, stopped, with another old gentleman in high shirt-collar 
and a tail-coat, opposite Holdsworth’s window, and argued, 
with many galvanic flourishes of the arms and grimaces of the 
face. There was much political excitement abroad at that 
time owing to the Keform Bill of the Grey Administration, to 
which the royal assent had been given, and the dark-skinned 
14 


210 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


old gentleman — whose age, warmth, and intemperate flonrishes 
were as demonstrative of his politics as his language — bade his 
companion take notice that, before five years were passed, 
England would be a tenth-rate power, governed by a mob, 
with a Jesuit seated on every hearth, a Nuncio preaching at 
St. Paul’s, not a Bible to be found in the country, and the 
gallows groaning under strings of honest patriots. The old 
gentleman in the high shirt-collar, who clearly shared his 
friend’s opinions, nodded savagely, asked with his shoulders : 
“ What would you have?” and then moved on a dozen paces, 
to be stepped again by the other old gentleman with proph- 
ecies, maybe, more blood-chilling and awful than those he 
had already declaimed. 

Presently Holdsworth, scarcely conscious of what he was 
about, left the window and approached the bookcase. He 
pulled out a volume which proved to be an old copy of “ Gul- 
liver’s Travels,” ‘‘adorn’d with sculptures,” and his eye light- 
ing on that passage in which Gulliver closes his account of his 
vsecond voyage,* his thoughts trooped off to his old sea-faring 
life, the book closed upon his fingers, and he sank in deep 
meditation. 

The restoration of his memory was comparatively so recent 
that he had found no leisure to recall those frightful ex^Deri- 
ences of his which could not recur without overwhelming him 
with an unspeakable horror of the sea. He now understood 
that it should have been his duty to call upon the owners of 
the Meteor^ and acquaint them with the circumstances of the 
wreck of their vessel, and the deaths of the persons who were 
in his boat — all of whom he clearly remembered. There were 
friends, doubtless, both in England and America, who would 
wish to receive tidings of the fate of these j)eople, though the 
long interval of five years should tell as plain a story as Holds- 
worth could relate. He knew not whether the inmates of the 


^ “ In a little time I and my family and friends came to a right under- 
standing : but my wife protested ‘ I should never go to sea any more ; ’ 
although my evil destiny so ordered that she had not the power to hin- 
der me.” 


IN THE ELLESMERE ROAD. 


211 


other boats had been saved, and he would have given much 
to ascertain this, but he understood that any commnnication 
he made to the ship-owners would be almost sure to appear in 
print, by which his wife would learn that he was alive. “ No ; 
let the world think me dead ! ” he exclaimed, bitterly. He 
had only to live for the past now — for that memory which had 
betrayed him and ruined his life. His future was bare and 
barren, and there was nothing in all the world that could 
kindle one ray of comfort in his hopeless heart but the bleak 
privilege of dwelling near his wife and child. 

He restored the book to its place and returned to the win- 
dow. 

In the roadw'ay, a few yards to the right, a little girl was 
standing, holding a doll. She was a very little creature, with 
bright-yellow hair down her back, and she held the doll in 
motherly fashion on her arm, and caressed it with her hand. 

Her back was toward Holdsworth, whose eyes were rooted 
upon her. 

She turned presently and looked down the road, and Holds- 
worth saw a little face upon Avhich God had graven a sign that 
made the poor father clutch at the wall to steady himself. For 
there was his own face in miniature — the face that Dolly had 
loved before the sufferings of the mind and the anguish of 
hunger and thirst had twisted from it all resemblance it had 
ever borne to what was manly and beautiful in the human 
countenance. 

He pressed his hands to his eyes and gazed again, then ran to 
the bell-rope and pulled it. But wlien he had done this he 
wished it undone ; for would not his agitation excite Mrs. Par- 
rot’s suspicions? What w^as there in a stranger’s child that 
should so interest him ? . 

He bit his lip and controlled himself with desperate wall, 
and when Mrs. Parrot opened the door he said to her, in a 
steady voice and with a forced smile, 

‘‘I am sorry to trouble you. I am very fond of little chil- 
dren. Pray, can you tell me who that child is there ? ” 

Mrs. Parrot drew to the window, evidently finding nothing 
odd in the question, and said, 


212 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE, 


“ Wliv, that’s little Nellie Holdsworth, Mrs. Conway’s 
daughter.” 

‘ ‘ Ah ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth. 

‘‘ She is a dear ! ” continued Mrs. Parrot. am very fond 
of that child, Mr. Hampden. She’s the only child i’ the road 
I allow to come into my garden, for children are so wilful 
there’s no tollin’ what they’ll do the moment your eyes are off 
’emt See wdiat a little lady she looks, and how prettily she 
holds her doll ! She’s waiting for her mamma, I suppose.” 

Mrs. Parrot rapped with her nails on the windo’w. The 
child looked round, and Holdsworth shrank away. Mrs. Par- 
rot beckoned. Holdsworth would have stopped her, but could 
find no words. 

“ She’s coming, Mr. Hampden. I’ll bring her to you, sir, if 
you’ll wait a moment.” 

And out she went. 

In a few seconds she returned, leading by the hand the child, 
who hung back W’hen she caught sight of the white-faced, 
bearded man. 

‘ ‘ There, Mr. Hampden, this is my pretty young friend, 
little Nelly ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Parrot, stooping to give the 
child a kiss. “ Go and shake hands with the gentleman, my 
dear, and show him your nice doll. I’ll tell you w^hen I see 
your mamma.” 

“Come, dear, come to me,” said Holdsworth, in alow 
voice. 

The child api3roached him slowly, stopping now and again, 
and looking shyly at Mrs. Parrot. 

‘ ‘ Tut, tut ! ” exclaimed that lady. ‘ ‘ What are you afraid 
of, Miss Nelly ? Go and shake hands with the gentleman, like 
a little lady.” 

Holdsworth put out his hand ; the child advanced a stex3 
nearer ; he fell upon one knee and drew her to him. 

For some moments he could not speak ; he could only look 
at her— look with eyes of all-devouring love, absorbing all the 
sw^eetness of that young face, feeling a pang of exquisite joy, 
but shivering quickly as his fingers locked themselves ux^on 
her tiny hand. 


JJSr THE ELLESMERE ROAD. 


213 

He longed to press the little creature to his heart, to fasten 
his lips upon her mouth, to weep over her. 

“Tell me your name, little one.” 

“ Nelly,” replied the child, keeping at arm’s-length from 
him, and staring into his face. 

“Nelly what ? ” 

“ Nelly Ho’dwort’.” 

His own name thus lisped by her thrilled through him ; he 
caught his breath, and said : 

“ May I kiss you ? ” 

She put up her mouth, and he kissed her. 

“How pretty your hair is,” he murmured, in a voice of ex- 
quisite tenderness, which made Mrs. Parrot turn suddenly and 
look at him. He met her glance with a smile, and said : 

“ I am very fond of children. Will this little girl come and 
see me here sometimes ? ” 

“Ay, that she will, sir. Won’t you, Nelly?” 

“Det.” 

“ How old are you, Nelly ? ” 

“Four.” 

“ Who gave you that doll ? ” 

“Mamma.” 

“You will bring dolly to see me, and we will have tea, all 
three of us. What have I got here ? A bright shilling ! That 
will buy dolly a parasol ! ” 

No words can describe the tone his voice took as he spoke. 

‘ ‘ What do you say to the gentleman for this beautiful 
present ? ” cried Mrs. PaiTot. 

“Tanks,” said the child, putting the doll on the floor to 
examine the money with both hands. 

“ Oh, here comes your mamma ! ” said Mrs. PaiTot. “ Make 
your reverence to the gentleman — there’s a dear ; pick up dolly 
— that’s right.” 

She took Nelly’s hand and ran with her out of the room. 

The mother, standing at her gate on the other side of the 
road, looking up and down the road, caught sight of Mrs. 
Parrot and the child, and crossed over to them. 

They remained opposite Holdsworth’s window talking, while 


214 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE, 


he, shrinking against the wall, peered at them through the 
muslin curtain. 

The five years which had passed since he had seen his wife 
had worked but very little change in her. There was more 
womanly fulness in her form ; and this was about all those 
five years had done for her. Her face was still as youthful as 
when Holdsworth had last looked on it, her eyes still possessed 
their deep and delicate tint, the hair its richness and lustre, 
the mouth its sweetness, the whole face that almost infantine 
expression, conveyed by soft, shadowy lines and the archness of 
the pencilled eyebrows, which made it beautiful in repose, more 
beautiful yet in sorrow. But, young and fair as she seemed, 
there was a deep-rooted care in her face which, without quali- 
fying its freshness, yet mingled in her smile, and lived in her 
eyes, and fixed a wistful look on her, such as would be seen in 
one who lingers long, long waiting for the summons to depart 
which no day brings. Her dress was shabby, her gloves old ; 
but her beauty made even her faded apparel, cut after the un- 
becoming fashion then in vogue, picturesque. She wore a 
white crape handkerchief over her bare shoulders, and a bon- 
net-shaped hat, ornamented with a dark feather, which, droop- 
ing over her back, imparted a peculiar vividness to the light, 
sheeny gold of her hair. 

Strained as his ears were, Holdsworth could not hear her 
voice, though Mrs. Parrot’s kindly cackle was audible enough. 
It was manifest that they exchanged mere commonplace civil- 
ities ; and presently Mrs. Parrot dropped a courtesy, and the 
mother and child walked slowly away. 

Holdsworth watched them with just such a look in his eyes 
as had been in them when, racked with torture in the open 
boat, he had cast glances full of passionate despair round the 
horizon for the ship that was to rescue him. He saw the little 
girl hold up her shilling, whereupon the mother stopped and 
looked back, then continued her walk and jDassed out of sight. 


OVER THE WAT. 


215 


CHAPTEE XXVI. 

OVER THE WAY. 

It was natural, after tlie first liveliness of the emotion which 
had been excited in Mrs. PaiTot’s breast by the installation of 
a lodger worth fourteen shillings a week to her had in some 
degree subsided, that she should begin to wonder who that 
lodger was. 

She had been particularly struck and greatly taken by his 
behavior to the little girl, and inferred, of course, that he was 
a humane and tender-hearted man — a conjecture which, al- 
though it was true, did no credit to her sagacity, considering 
the circumstance on which it was based ; since it is a notorious 
fact that great rascals will admire, pet, and ‘ ‘ tip ” little chil- 
dren, whose parents they would not scru2:)le to rob of their very 
last farthing. 

But though Mrs. Parrot had no doubt as to her lodger’s hu- 
manity of character after what she had seen, she could not by 
any means feel so sure as to the position he -held either in or 
out of society, the calling he had followed, if ever he had fol- 
lowed a calling, or the part of the world he came from. His 
name was Hampden ; that was EngHsh. But had he a Chris- 
tian name ? No initial stood between the Mr. and the Hamp- 
den on the card afiixed to his portmanteau. Was he a Chris- 
tian ? She hoped he was. She was no judge of other religions ; 
but she. must say, when she let her lodgings to ^Deople, that she 
liked to feel that they were Christians. 

He had ordered dinner at two o’clock ; and when she came 
in to lay the cloth, for she kept no servant, she found him still 
at the window, staring into the empty road as earnestly as if it 
were filled with a very beautiful and novel procession. But 
she could only suppose that he looked out of the window be- 
cause he was new to the x^lace. 

He smiled softly when he met her glance, but did not speak, 
nor would she hazard any remarks herself, for fear of being 


216 


JOHN HOLDSWORTIl CHIEF MATE. 


thoTiglit intrusive. All that he said during dinner was to ex- 
press himself well pleased with her cooking ; but she noticed 
in removing the dishes that, pleasantly as he had praised the 
piece of roast mutton, he had scarcely tasted it, and that of 
the four potatoes she had put into the dish three and a half 
remained. 

While in the kitchen, she heard him leave the house, and, 
when her task was done, she went up-stairs to her mother’s 
room, whither she had conducted the old lady soon after little 
Nelly’s visit. 

“If the gentleman don’t eat more every day than he’s just 
had for dinner,” said she, throwing herself back in a chair and 
fanning her hot face with the corner of her apron, ‘ ‘ I reckon 
we shall have a funeral here before long.” 

“A what!” gasped the old woman, who sat upright in a 
cane chair near the open window, with an immense Bible on 
her right hand and her spectacles on the top of it. 

“ He’s no more than skin an’ bone as he is,” continued Mrs. 
Parrot ; ‘ ‘ but it was a picter to see him with the child. I 
never see a man more soft with a child before.” 

“He ain’t likely to make strange nises o’ nights, is he, 
Sairey ? ” exclaimed the old woman, earnestly regarding her 
daughter with a pair of eyes from which all expression and 
light seemed literally washed out, leaving nothing but two 
circles of weak, dim blue. 

‘ ‘ I don’t think so. He seems to me quiet enough. He’s 
fond o’ 'staring into the road. One might think he’s trying to 
find out where he is. I niver see a stranger face. He don’t 
look English-like, and yet he talks uncommon well. I can tell 
by his boots, which is square as square at the toes, and his 
clothes, which have an odd twist somehows, that he’s not from 
these parts. Maybe he’s from Ireland.” 

“I hope not, Sairey,” ejaculated the old woman, bending 
forward with the profoundly confidential air of old age. “ I 
was once fellow-sarvint with a Ayrish futman as was alius 
talkin’ of burnin’ down houses, an’ his speech ran on so it were 
niver to be trusted, for niver was such lies as he used to tell. 
You’d best gi’ him notice, Saii*ey. You can say I gi’ you more 


OVEE THE WAY, 


217 


trouble nor you can well get through, and recommend Burton’s 
lodgin’s to him. Burton’s a strong man, and kapes dogs.” 

“ Tut ! I’m not afeard ! ” said Mrs. Parrot, tossing up her 
hands and giving her cap a pull. “ There’s no more harm in 
the man than there is in you ; for didn’t I tell yer how he gave 
the girl a shillin’, and spoke that soft to it it made me feel as 
if I could ha’ cried ? Give him notice, and him not here a day 
yit! Fourteen shillin’ is fourteen shillin’ in these scarce 
times, to say nothin’ of his being as well-spoken a man as iver 
you listened to in your life ; an’ as for his face, it is but as 
God made it, an’ beauty is but skin deep, as t’ parson says, an’ 
I’m for lettiiT well alone. ” 

“ If he ain’t Ayrish,” said the old woman, stroking the back 
of her lean hand, “ he may be very well. But sich talk of in" 
vasions from that nashun as I used to hear when I was a gal, 
an’ the drink an’ shootin’ as goes on there, is enough to wet 
your hair with perspiration — ” 

‘ ‘ / didn’t say he was Irish. I don’t know what he is. He 
Was askin’ about Mrs. Conway, though she’s unbeknown to 
him, as any one might tell who heerd him questionin’. He 
wants Miss Nelly to bear him company at tea, and I don’t see 
why the child can’t come, if the mother ’ull let it. I won’t 
take it upon myself to bring the child in. I’ll speak to the 
mother when I see her. I like Mrs. Conway. She’s a nice- 
spoken lady, but seems to know a deal of grief, poor thing. It 
’ud be a mussy if that husband of hers ’ud take it into his head 
to pull out all his own teeth. The cook at Mrs. Short’s was 
tollin’ me he’s grown that wicious there’s no wishin’ him a 
civil good-mornin’. An’ drink ! Didn’t I see him pass here 
yesterday evenin’, staggerin’ on his legs like a doll which a 
child tries to teach walkin’ to ? ” 

“ The ’pothecaries used to draw teeth in my day ; now they 
must be all gentle-folks as looks into your mouth,” said the 
old woman, who had been three minutes searching in her 
pocket for the snuffbox that lay oj^en, with some of its sand- 
colored* contents spilled in her lap. 

“ Pretty gentle-folks ! ” exclaimed IVIrs. Parrot, pulling up 
the old woman’s dress and tilting the spilled snuff into the box. 


218 


JOHN II0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


“ If they’re all like Mr. Conway, I’d rather carry a toothache 
to my grave than have it stopped wi’ the lockjaw, which they 
tell me he gave to Mr. Timpson ; for drink had taken away the 
use of his mind, and he pushed the wrong instray ment into the 
man’s mouth and nearly choked him, he did, and then took out 
two wrong teeth after all ; beautiful teeth they wos, for Mr. 
Timpson showed them to me hisself, with the tears standin’ 
in his eyes, wrapped up in silver paper.” 

“Thank God, he can’t draw none o’ my teeth ! ” mumbled 
-^the old woman, talking through her nose in rapt enjoyment of 
the flavor of the snuff ; “ they’re all gone.” 

‘ ‘ I noticed Mrs. Conway’s gownd to-day. If I W' as her hus- 
band, I’d scorn to let her appear in sich a rag. And there was 
darns in the knees o’ that child’s stockings as made ’em look 
forty year old. They’re always i’ the same dresses, both of ’em. 
There’s a silk she puts on o’ Sundays, all wore thin over the 
buzzum, and I remember the bonnet she had on to-day iver 
since I’ve known her. Sich a j)retty face as she has, too ! I 
expect he must ha’ told her some fine lies to get her to marry 
him. They say he niver did well, even when he was in the 
High Street wi’ that show-box of his stuck up, filled wi’ gap- 
ing gums an’ naked teeth as turned the stomach to see. He 
must ha’ sold that piece of ugliness, for I don’t see itnowheres 
outside his house, which is a mussy, for I’d as lief see a skili- 
ton on a pole for a sign ! Fancy a doctor settin’ up a death’s- 
head to show his trade ! ” 

She jumped from her chair with a face and gesture of dis- 
gust, and, throwing some knitting with the pins through it into 
her mother’s lap, adjusted her cap before the glass, and left 
the room. 

There is always some truth in gossip ; and there was a great 
deal in what Mrs. Parrot had said of Mr. Conway, who, as we 
have seen, held no place at all in her opinion. But then sym- 
pathy for Dolly was to be expected from a woman who, if she 
did not know what it was to live with a drunkard, had known 
what it was to live with a surly man, whose eye was evil and 
whose voice was thick, and whose characteristic method of 


OVER THE WAY, 


219 


expressing discontent >fv^as by holding his clinched fist under 
his wife’s nose. 

Mr. Conway is passing Mrs. PaiTot’s door at the very mo- 
ment that Mrs. Parrot is leaving her mother’s bedroom : we 
shall not have an opportunity of seeing much of him, having 
the fortunes of a better kind of hero to deal with ; so, while 
Holdsworth is away from his lodgings, we’ll step into the road 
and have a look at the dentist, and follow him into his house. 

He is a man with sandy whiskers and light hair, but by no 
means ill-looking. On the contrary, there are materials in his 
face out of which a very pleasing countenance could be made ; 
a well-shaped nose, a well-shaped forehead, a good chin, a 
facial outline clearly defined and perfectly symmetrical. 

But there never was a better illustration than this man’s face 
of the truth that good features make but a very small portion 
of beauty. 

I want a word to express that middle quality of aspect which 
is contrived by the mingling of comely lineaments with bad 
passions. Possibly the effect is no more than a neutralization 
of nature’s good intentions, wherein we behold a handsome 
countenance sunk into a species of iDliysical negation, by moral 
qualities tugging it hard in the direction of repellent ugli- 
ness. 

A most unstriking face, at which you would barely glance 
and pass on absolutely unimpressed. His thin lips might 
mark both cruelty and selfishness ; his eyes are made heavy by 
their drooping lids, and the irises are pale and unintelligent. 
He is dressed in the style of the times, of course ; pantaloons 
strapped over his boots, a frock-coat gaping in a circle round a 
great quantity of black satin stock (in which are two pins and 
a chain). But the pantaloons are frayed at the heels and 
bagged at the knees ; and the coat is suspiciously polished at 
the elbows and the rim of the collar. He walks with a 
quick, uneasy step, his hat slightly cocked, and his hands in 
his breeches pockets, and arriving at the gate of his house, 
opens it by giving it a kick with his foot. 

He entered the sitting-room with his hat on, and found the 
cloth laid for dinner, but nobody in the room, which was a 


220 


JOim nOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


soiled and dingy apartment, although the house was a new 
one, and the paper fresh and the ceiling white. But no paper 
and whitewash could qualify the sordid suggestions of the old 
drugget imperfectly nailed over the floor, the old leather sofa 
and the old leathern arm-chair, the mantel-piece decorated by 
a pair of plated . candlesticks marked with indents, the dingy 
red curtains, the papier-mache table in the window, wdth the 
mother-of-pearl dropping out of it. 

The subtle magic of feminine fingers, which extracts from 
rubbish itself what hidden capabilities it may possess of com- 
forting the eye with some faintest aspect of taste, seemed 
either never to have been exercised upon this room, or to have 
found itself powerless to deal with it. The only feminine sign 
was a small bundle of child’s stockings on the top of an old 
work-basket on the sofa. 

Mr. Conway put his head out of the door and called, “Are 
you there, wife ? ” 

“Yes,” replied Dolly’s voice from down-stairs. 

“ How long will dinner be ? ” 

“ Five minutes. ” 

He threw his hat down and walked into the “surgeiy,” a 
room at the end of the passage, furnished with a chest of 
drawers, a toilet-table and a looking-glass, an arm-chair, an 
ugly circular box with a basin let into it, standing beside the 
arm-chair ; on the toilet-table, some small hand-glasses, a pair 
of forceps, and three unfinished false teeth. Through the 
window was to be seen a slip of garden of the breadth of the 
house, and about fifty feet long — its neglected state, its few 
pining shrubs, and a flag-pole with a vane atop that croaked to 
every passage of the wind, showing up very squalidly against 
the neighboring garden, which was richly stocked with wall- 
fruit and ferns and green plants. 

Little Nelly was in this piece of ground with her doll, seated 
on the grass, and at that moment making such a picture as a 
painter would stop to study and receive into his mind ; her 
round, dark-blue eyes following the swallows which chased 
each other high in the air, her mouth pouted into an expres- 
sion of exquisite infantine w^onder, her bright hair about her 


OVER THE WAY. 


221 


shoulders, and looking, as the breeze stirred the sunshine upon 
it, like a falling shower of fine gold. 

Mr. Conway stared at the child for a moment, and then 
turned away and sauntered towards the door, but came back to 
open one of the draw^ers in the chest and extract a leather- 
covered bottle, which he shook at his ear and put to his mouth. 

O God ! what contrasts there are in life, lying so close toge- 
ther that the devil, though his worship be no bigger than a 
man, might measure the space between with outstretched 
hands ! Look at Purity and Innocence in the garden, with its 
eyes raised to heaven..; and the skulking fellow in the dingy 
room sw’allowdng brandy as a man steals money ; and in the 
room below — a darksome, scantily furnished kitchen — a sweet- 
faced woman doing servant’s work, and urging the slattern by 
her side into quicker movements, that the gentleman up-stairs 
shall have no occasion to use bad language. 

She comes up-stairs presently, this Dolly, her face flushed, 
and breathing quickly from the hurry of her movements, and 
bears with her own hands a dish that will furnish but a poor 
repast, though she has done her best to make what little there 
is palatable. The slattern, with wisps of red hair about her 
forehead, and loose shoes, which beat a double knock at each 
step upon the un carpeted staircase, follows, armed with a jug 
and a loaf of bread. Behind comes little Nelly, whom the 
mother has summoned before leaving the kitchen, and wdio has 
climbed the staircase with more labor than Mont Blanc is scaled 
by the Alpine tourist. 

No word is spoken. Nelly is lifted into a chair by her 
mother, and Mr. Conway seats himself before the dish and fills 
a glass from the jug of ale, taking care — a true connoisseur in 
such matters — to let the liquor fall from a height to secure a 
froth, into which he dips his mouth and nose. 

The slattern leaves the room ; and Dolly cuts up some meat 
and bread for the little one, with a whisper in her ear to say 
grace. 

“ Did you get the money, Bobert ? ” she asks presently, 
eating little herself, and noticing how Kobert bribes his appe- 
tite with sups of ale. 


222 


JOHN HOLBSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘‘ No. Davis was out.” 

‘ ‘ What shall we do ? I have only five-and-threepence left, 
and this meat is not paid for.” 

Pence make a sordid enumeration ; but we talk of pence, 
reader, when we have only pence to spend. 

‘‘We must sell something, that’s all,” says Mr. Conway, 
with a kind of defiant recklessness in his manner. 

She gives him a quick glance, looks at her child, and then 
closes the knife and fork upon her plate. 

He does not notice that she has eaten about as much as 
would serve a bird for a meal ; neither does he appear to re- 
mark that she drinks water. He, at all events, keeps the beer- 
jug at his elbow, from which, in a very short time, h^ pours 
out the last glass. 

The child alone continues eating. 

“ I don’t know what’s to be done ! ” he exclaims, in a voice 
of suppressed anger, pushing his chair from the table. ‘ ‘ The 
people have dropped me for that French quack in Mornington 
Street. I saw three carriages at his door when I passed Just 
now. I ought never to have left the old shop. I did well 
there. ” 

“You would do well here if you gave yourself a chance,” 
says Dolly. ‘ ‘ The lady who called yesterday evening came 
again this morning. Martha told me she looked annoyed 
when she heard you were out. She will go to some one else, 
I suppose, now.” 

“ Let her ! ” he calls out. “ How am I to know that people 
are coming to me after dark? Week after week passes, and 
they don’t come, and — am I going to hang about here a whole 
night in the hope of a patient turning up ? Why didn’t she 
leave word at what hour she meant to call to-day ? I went out 
to collect some money, and you know it, though I can guess 
what is in your thoughts. But it’s false — there’s my hand on 
it ! ” 

He let his hand fall heavily on the table, and stared at his 
wife. She slightly turned from him and looked through the 
window. He left the table and began to* pace the room. The 
child, having emptied her plate and wanting something to 


OYER TEE WAY, 


223 


play with, had taken the shilling Hold^worth had given her 
from her pocket, and tried to make it spin on the cloth. 

What’s that Nelly has got there? ” said Mr. Conway. 

‘‘ A shilling,” answered Dolly. 

“Did you give it her? Look at our dinner! You would 
pamjDer that child if we were starving. Talk to me of youi 
five-and-threepence when you can give your baby a shilling ! 

“ I did not give it to her.” 

“Who then?” 

“A gentleman.” 

“ What gentleman ? ” 

“A gentleman lodging at Mrs. Parrot’s.” 

He looked at her with irritable suspicion, and then said, 

“Did you see him give it? Did he take you and the child 
for beggars ? Confound his impudence ! Send Martha over to 
him with it.” 

He turned to ring the bell. 

“Stop!” said Dolly, quietly. “Nelly tells me that Mrs. 
Parrot tapped on the window to speak to her, and when she 
went in she saw the gentleman, who kissed her, and gave her 
the shilling to buy her doll a parasol. No insult could have 
been intended by this.” 

“Oh, that was it!” exclaimed Mr. Conway. “Well, and 
why did you let the child keep the money ? She’ll lose it. 
Take it from her.” 

“ It belongs to her. She will not lose it.” 

“Yes, she will. Nelly, give that money to your mamma.” 

But Nelly doubled her fist over it, and hid her hand under 
the table. 

“Do you hear what I say ? ” cried Mr. Conway. 

“ Why will you not let her keep it ? ” asked Dolly. 

“Am I master here or not ?” shouted Mr. Conway. “ Give 
that money to your mother, child ! ” 

Nelly began to whimper, terrified by the man’s voice, but 
loath to surrender her little treasure. He ste^oped up to her, 
whipped the little hand from under the cloth, and, forcing the 
shilling froni it, put it into his pocket. 

“Though I’m a beggar by my own folly,” he exclaimed. 


224 


JOHN HOLHS WORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


walking to the door, “I’ll not be insulted and defied by the 
beggars I have brought about me.” 

His fingers were in his pocket, and it seemed as though he 
would pull the money out and fling it on the table. But 
second thoughts prevailed ; he jerked his hat on his head, and 
naarched out of the house, banging the door after him. 

Dolly watched to see if he would step across to Mrs. Parrot’s, 
but he walked straight on. 

“Hush, my darling, hush!” she exclaimed, catching up 
the sobbing child. ‘ ‘ Dolly shall have her parasol ; I will buy 
it myself. Hush, my pet ! Nelly’s tears break poor mamma’s 
heart. Oh, John I oh, husband! ” she murmured ; “ why did 
God take you from me ? Why did He lead me and my little 
one into this misery ? ” 

Truly, it was misery of a forlorn and hopeless kind. But 
you have seen the man Dolly had married at his worst. The 
most brutal husband is not always bratal. The drunkard is 
not always drunk. More colors than black and white go to 
the painting of a man off the stage, where corked eyebrows 
strike no horror, and blood-boltered cheeks prove nothing more 
than a neglect of soap. 

Mr. Conway had his soft hours, when he would shed tears, 
smite his breast, and call himself a fiend — -having reference, 
by this flattering title, to nothing but his behavior to Dolly. 

He was undoubtedly in love with her when he married her ; 
and the sweet face which had made him haunt Southboume to 
the neglect of his patients would still, even after two years, 
have too much potency not to occasionally soften and give 
movement to the humanities which lay in him, hardened and 
drowned in drink. Though he had always, as long as people 
could remember him in Hanwitch, been what they called a dis- 
sipated man, he had managed somehow or other to get a living, 
to keep his landlord civil and wear good clothes. Ladies were 
not wanting who called him handsome. His manner, when 
sober, was courteous ; his language correct ; his fingers dex- 
terous in pulling teeth out or putting teeth in. Those who 
knew anything of him knew that he never saved a penny ; that 
were he to make ten thousand a year he would never save a 


OVER THE WAT. 


225 


i:)Gnny ; but they always said that, if he would only take a 
deep-rooted dislike to beer and brandy, go to bed at ten and 
rise at seven, attend to his business and give up smoking pipes 
in the streets, he might obtain enough money to enable him to 
keep a carriage and live in good style. 

How he met Dolly matters little. She was living in one 
room at Southbourne at that time, trying to obtain a livelihood 
by taking in needle-work. She was miserably poor, with a 
little baby at her breast. Old Mr. Newcome, the rector, did 
his best for her, and allowed her what little he could afford out 
of his slender income, which enabled her to pay her rent. But 
she had to clothe and feed her child and herself, and the work 
she procured was scanty and poorly paid for. God knows how 
she managed to straggle through those days! Mr. Conway 
asked her to marry him, but she answered “No,” bitterly, for 
her love for Holdsworth was a passion. Then her only friend, 
Mr. Newcome, died ; her health broke down ; she was abso- 
lutely destitute ; and so, for her baby’s sake — but shrinking 
from the marriage as one shrinks from the commission of aii 
evil deed, and with a heart in her so heavy that nothing but 
her love for her child seemed to keep her alive — she gave her 
hand to Mr. Conway, and went to live with him at Hanwitch. 

She had no affection for the man. Her marriage was a bit- 
ter necessity, and she hated it and herself for that. She had 
no knowledge of Conway’s habits, though she had had pene- 
tration enough to miss certain moral qualifications which are 
to be felt and cannot be explained. Now she discovered that 
he was an intemperate, improvident man, hasty in his temper, 
selfish, and at the sama time neglectful of his own interests. 

He was some way ahead in his downward career when he 
married her. The addition his marriage made to his expenses 
quickened his pace — as an object, rolling slowly at first, im- 
proves its velocity in proportion to the increase of its distance 
from the starting-point. One by one his patients deseiied 
him. He insulted his landlord, to whom he owed money, who 
gave him notice to quit. He then hired the little house in 
which we have found him, and was now illustrating one of the 
great mysteries of social life — the mystery of living without 
15 


226 JOHN H0LD8W0BTII, CHIEF MATE 


money, of keeping a house over his head without a shilling in 
his pocket, of wearing boots and coats without the means in 
his purse to pay off the milkman’s six-penny score. 

How is this done ? There are people doing it every day. 
They are doing more : they are keeping men-servants, renting 
big houses, wearing fine dresses, frequenting fashionable 
haunts on nothing a year. How Thackeray puzzled over this 
problem ! How Dickens tried to explain it, and failed ; for 
he is always driven to a last moment, when some good genius 
steps forward to help. Imagination can’t deal with a feat which 
makes nothing do the work of a great deal. 

There is, no doubt, something aggressive, even to good- 
nature, in the brooding melancholy that goes about its duties 
lifelessly, which gives spiritle^ attention to matters of moment 
and significance, which looks complaint without speaking it, 
and addresses itself to eveiy task of life with an air of reproach- 
ful endurance. 

A man possessed of such an inflammable temper as Conway 
would be constantly taking fire in the presence of such a mel- 
ancholy ; and it must be confessed that Dolly embodied the 
part with some degree of completeness. Silent and mournful 
submission to fate was the wrong attitude to assume towards a 
man in whom was a good deal of the fool. A powerful virago, 
with muscular arms and a venomous tongue, would have kept 
him to his work and out of the taverns by the irresistible in- 
fluence of words supported by finger-nails. 

Dolly, whose heart was never with him, soon learned to 
despise liim. It is true that she endeavored, at the beginning 
of their married life, to win him from his extravagant and 
reckless courses by entreaties and the mild persuasion of 
caresses ; but she soon ceased her appeals on finding that they 
took no effect, and only rarely alluded to his habits, which, 
having plunged them into poverty, were keeping them there, 
and sinking them lower and lower each day. 

With an inconsistency not very uncommon he resented her 
silence at the same time that he knew the expression of her 
thoughts would enrage him. He was still sufficiently under 
the control of her beauty to feel jealous of her love, which he 


FATHER AND GUILD. 


227 


very well knew was with the man they both thought dead. He 
once heard her teaching her child to pray, and presently lift 
Up her own voice in a prayer which had no name in it but 
John’s, whom she cried aloud to, bidding his spirit take wit- 
ness of the sufferings which had driven her into an act that 
made her hateful to herself. Once, when her gentle sweetness 
was stirred into passion by him, she declared that she had 
never loved him ; that she had married him for her child’s 
sake ; that if God took her babe from her she would kill her- 
self, for her husband was in heaven, and his voice spoke in her 
conscience, eternally reproaching her for forgetting the vow 
they had made — that., though death shoidd sundei' them, the sur- 
vivor would he true to love and memory, and live alone. 

But his petulance, his churlishness, his occasional brutality, 
indeed, was not owing to this. She had merely put his own 
knowledge of her into language ; and since he had married 
her, fully persuaded that the gift of her hand had been dic- 
tated by pure necessity only, he could scarcely find himself 
alienated by the confession of her motive. Poverty and drink 
were the two demons that mastered him. And poverty with- 
out drink would have done the work; for his happened to be 
one of those boneless natures which give under a very small 
weight ; one of those weak characters who, if they find them- 
selves in a gutter, are satisfied to lie there and roll there, and 
moisten the mud with which they bedaub those about them 
with tears, and make their settlements gross with oaths and 
shrieks and reproaches. 


CHAPTEE XXVII. 

FATHEE AND CHILD. 

All next morning Holdsworth kept watch for Dolly and his 
child, but did not see them. But Mr. Conway had passed 
when Mrs. Parrot happened to be in the room laying the cloth 
for dinner, and the woman had directed Holdsworth’s attention 


228 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTII, CHIEF MATE. 


to liim. The glimpse he obtained, however, was very brief. 
All that he saw was a sandy-whiskered gentleman with a tilted 
hat aim, with rather uncertain legs, for the gate with the brass 
plate upon it, and vanish with an alacrity that was painfully 
suggestive of a disordered vision. 

“ There he goes ! Drunk as usual ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Parrot, 
disgustfully, giving the table-cloth an angry twitch. 

‘‘ How does he live ? I have seen nobody call at his house 
yet.” 

“No sir; and I don’t think you’re likely to. Persons as 
can’t get served at the other tooth-drawer’s are too sensible to 
walk all this way to get their jaws broke.” 

“ Are they very poor, do you think ? ” 

“ Why, sir, I suppose he must pay his rent somehow, but I 
don’t know as he does anything more. I’m told that they owe 
money all over the town, but the tradespeople make no fuss, 
because, as Mr. Jairing the butcher says to me, ‘ It’s all very 
fine, Mrs. Parrot,’ he says, ‘talkin’ of hexecutions, but what’s 
the use o’ going to the expense of a distress when there’s noth- 
ing to seize ?’ There’s a deal in that, sir.” 

‘ ‘ God help them ! ” muttered Holdsworth to himself. Then, 
looking up, he said, “Do you think Mrs. Conway would let 
her little girl come and have tea with me this afternoon ? ” 

“I should think she would, sir, and feel honored by the 
askin’.” 

“ I have not seen the child to-day,” 

“No, sir. Mrs. Conway don’t often come out. Shekapesa 
bit of a wench as does her arrand?, and I’ve told the slut times 
out o’ mind to put her bonnet on, an’ not go fiyin’ down the 
road as though a orficer was arter her, disgracin’ of our neigh- 
borhood, and frightening away any respectable person as might 
be cornin’ wi’ a bad tooth. I don’t think of him, sir. If I 
could put a sixpence in his way I would, for the sake of his 
wife an’ the little one.” 

“ How shall I invite little Nelly if I do not see her ? ” 

“ I’ll run across, if you like, when I’ve got your dinner 
ready, and ask Mrs. Conway if she’ll let the child come. Per- 
haps you’ll just watch, sir, and tell me when the husband 


FATHER AND GUILD, 


229 


leaves the house. I don’t want to meet him if I can help 
it.” 

An hour elapsed before Holdsworth saw Mr. Conway pass on 
his way to the High Street, on which he rang the bell and 
informed Mrs. Parrot that she might now call on Mrs. Conway 
in safety. 

His anxiety to have the child impressed his landlady as a 
very odd thing. She could understand his admiration of 
Nelly ; she could also understand his calling her in and giving 
her a hiss and a present. No man’s heart, she considered, could 
fail to be warmed by the sight of so pretty a little girl. But 
she could not understand him posting himself at the window, 
and looking troubled because he did not see the child, and 
showing himself as anxious to have her to tea as if she were a 
grown woman and he was courting her. 

8he sailed across the road (watched by Holdsworth), her cap- 
strings streaming over her shoulders, and walked up to the 
door of the Conways’ house, and gave a single knock. She 
was kept waiting so long that when the door was at last opened 
by the “bit of a slut,” who, to judge by her complexion, ap- 
peared to have been devoting the last hour or two to black- 
leading her face, Mrs. Parrot, instead of asking for Mrs. Con- 
way, began storming at her for “kaping respectable folks on 
the door-steps while she sat readin’ ha’porths o’ bad fiction by 
the kitchen fire.” 

“ I wasn’t readin’. I didn’t hear yer. Who do you want — 
missus ? ” said the girl, sulkily. 

“ Why, Mrs. Conway, of course. Show me in, and go an* 
tell her at once that Pm here,” replied Mrs. Parrot, not wait- 
ing to be shown in, but pushing into the middle of the pas- 
sage. 

The girl shambled off, and presently Mrs. Conway came up 
the kitchen stairs. The skirt of her dress was pinned up at 
the waist, and her arm-sleeves were above her elbows, display- 
ing the whiteness and fineness of the skin, though the arms 
were very thin. 

“How do you do, Mrs. Parrot? You will excuse my 
wretched, untidy appearance. I am doing a little washing 


230 


JOHN HOLDS WORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


down-stairs, and would not keep you waiting while I made 
myself presentable.” 

“Mver mention it, ma’am,” answered Mrs. Parrot, looking 
with pleasure mingled with pain at the sweet face, in which, 
now that there was no hat to shadow it, the sorrow and care 
were clearly seen. Her prettiness was but enhanced by the 
looped-up skirt, showing the little feet and small, firm ankles. 
Her bright hair was in disorder, and there was the little flush 
of recent exertion on her cheeks. 

“ I’ve called wi’ a message from my gentleman lodger. He 
wants Miss Nelly to drink tea with him, and sent me across to 
ask you to let her come.” 

‘‘ The same gentleman who gave Nelly a shilling yesterday ?” 
asked Dolly, looking half surprised and half pleased. 

‘‘Yes, ma’am. He’s a very nice person, and seems uncom- 
mon partial to children. He’s been all the morning on the 
lookout for your little gal, and I hope you’ll let her come, 
ma’am, and bring her doll wi’ her, for I think he’ll take it to 
heart if you refuse.” 

“Oh, I will certainly send her. Will half-past three do? 
I shall have to dress her. Pray give my compliments to the 
gentleman, and thank him for his kindness. You have not 
told me his name.” 

“Hampden, ma’am; Mr. Hampden.” 

“ I have not yet seen him. Is he an old man ? Few young 
men care for children.” 

“ To tell you the truth, ma’am, I’ve got no more idea of his 
age than I have of the age of my house. He’s got a deal o’ 
gray hair on his head, and yet he isn’t an old man either, 
although to see him walk, leanin’ on his stick, you’d take him 
to be sixty. T think he means to make friends wi’ your little 
gal, if you’ll let him, just for want o’ company. He don’t seem 
to know anybody in Hanwitch, nor to follow any callin’ like. 
I doubt he’s a bit rich ; but you see, ma’am, he only took my 
lodgin’s the day before yesterday, and I’ve not had time to 
make him quite out yit. ” 

Saying this, Mrs. Parrot dropped a courtesy, and turned to 
depart, taking a quick, comprehensive glance at the dingy 


FATHER AND CHILD. 


231 


little parlor as she passed, and mentally comparing it with her 
own rooms. 

Holdsworth was at the window when she returned, and she 
could hardly forbear laughing, so tickled was she by his ex- 
pectant face. 

“Mrs. Conway’s compliments, sir, and she says that her 
little gal will be with you at half-past three, thankin’ you for 
your kindness,” said she, her eyes twinkling with her sup- 
pressed but perfectly good-natured mirth. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Parrot, for taking so much trouble!” 
exclaimed Holdsworth, gleefully. “What time is it now? 
A quarter to three. I shall just have time to walk into the 
High Street and buy a cake. She will like a cake — a ]Dlum- 
cake, I think; and shall I get some marmalade? Yes, she 
will enjoy marmalade — and what else ? Tell me, Mrs. Parrot ; 
what do little children like ? ” 

“ Why, mostly sweet things, sir. I guess the marmalade 
’ll take Miss Nelly’s fancy. But don’t you trouble, sir ; I can 
run out and buy you what you want.” 

“No — I am obliged to you. There are other things she 
might like which I shouldn’t be able to remember without 
seeing them. We will have tea at four, Mrs. Parrot. I shall 
be back in twenty minutes.” 

Mrs. Parrot watched him leave the house and walk down the 
road as swiftly as he could, leaning on his stick. “ Well, if 
iver I saw the like of this I ” she exclaimed aloud. “ Pll not 
tell mother ; it might scare her. There’s something downright 
sing’ler in the notion of a stranger takin’ all this trouble, and 
goin’ almost wild-like all along of a little gal he never saw 
before yisterday. Some folks ’ud call it alarmin’.” 

Her nerves, however, were equal to the occasion ; for, while 
Holdsworth was away, she journeyed up-stairs and unlocked a 
little glass-fronted cupboard screwed into a corner of her bed- 
room, from which she took a teapot, a cream-jug, and two cups 
and saucers of brilliantly colored china ; likewise from an open 
box under her bed a tray magnificently decorated with mother- 
of-peaii birds-of -paradise seated on pink trees, and surrounded 
by a prospect not to be paralleled on this side the moon. 


232 


JOHN HOLmWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


She returned to the kitchen with these things, and then 
entered the garden and picked a bouquet of sweet-scented 
flowers, with which she furnished the tray. Then she set to 
work upon a loaf of bread, and produced in no time a number 
of thin and appetizing slices ; which done, and the tray being 
arranged, she fell back a step to admire the efiect. 

At a quarter-past three Holdsworth returned, followed by a 
boy with his arms full of bags. He called to Mrs. Parrot, who 
came out and took the bags from the boy, and placed them 
upon the dining-room table. More things than edibles had 
been purchased ; though of these there was enough to give an 
evening-party upon — fruit, cake, pots of jam, gingerbreadr 
nuts, sweetmeats, tarts ; there was a doll ; there was also a 
horse and cart, and there was an immense box of bricks. 

Mrs. Parrot turned pale, and was much too astonished to 
speak, as Holdsworth thrust the bags and pots, the buns and 
the tarts, into her arms, and requested her to take them at 
once into the kitchen, and display them on plates to the very 
best advantage, ready for the little one when the bell should 
ring for tea. He then hid the toys in a closet, and stationed 
himself at the window to watch for Nelly. 

Punctual to the moment, she came out of the house, led by 
the hand by the servant, who looked horribly grimy. Holds- 
worth ran to the door and opened it, and when the child came 
timidly Up to him, snatched her up in his arms, and hastened 
with her into the sitting-room, kissing her all the way. 

‘ * There’s a good little pet, ” he said, sitting down and keep- 
ing her on his knee. “ Let me take off your hat. Nelly mustn’t 
be afraid of me.” 

“My own ! my own ! ” he murmured, as his lingering fingers 
caressed her soft hair, and he gazed with passionate love at her 
big eyes, roving, with a half-scared expression, from his face 
around the room. 

“ Me dot dolly,” she said, producing the old toy from under 
her cloak. 

“ Ay, that’s right ; and dolly shall have a slice of cake all to 
herself. Here she is ! ” he exclaimed, seeing Mrs. Parrot peeping 
in at the door. “Will you take her hat and this little cape ? ” 


FATHER AND CHILD, 


233 


‘‘How do you do, dear?” said Mrs. Parrot, giving the child 
a kiss. 

“Look at my frock!” exclaimed Nelly, holding up her 
dress, which had a little embroidery work upon it, and which 
bore marks of much patient mending and darning. 

“Beautiful! beautiful!” cried Mrs. Parrot. “Pve set the 
kettle on to bile, sir, and tea ’ll be ready whiniver you’re pleased 
to want it.” 

So saying, she dropped a courtesy, being greatly impressed 
by Mr. Hampden’s undoubted wealth, illustrated by his prodi- 
gal purchases, and withdrew. 

Father and child ! A lonely man, gentle, honorable, faith- 
ful, as any whom (Jod in His wisdom has chosen to afflict, open- 
ing his heart to receive and fold up the sweetness and inno- 
cence of his own little baby ! 

Ah ! I think even Mrs. Parrot might have guessed the strange 
mystery of this^man’s desire for the child had she but watched 
him from some secret hiding-place when the door had closed 
upon her. 

He surrendered himself to his emotion when he felt him- 
self alone with the little girl, and for many moments could not 
speak to her, could do no more than look at her, searching her 
fairy lineaments with something almost of a woman’s ecstasy, 
reading his brief history of hopeful, beautiful love in her 
fresh, deep eyes, and drinking in greedily the memories of the 
days that were no more, which thronged from the face that 
mirrored his as it was when Dolly knew him, as the dew-drop 
nodrrors the sun. 

But he was recalled to himself by the gathering expression 
of fear in ’Nelly. Indeed, there was something alarming 
enough to her in the concentrated passion, all soft and holy as 
it was, that shone in his fixed regard. 

Such abandonment to feeling would not do, if the part he 
was to play was to be complete. 

He placed her gently on the floor, and, going to the cup- 
board, brought out the doll. 

“ See, Nelly ! here is a little lady I invited expressly to 
drink tea with you. She told me that she had often seen you 


234 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


pass her shop in the High Street, and that she wanted to live 
with you. You must take her home when you leave me, will 
you ? ” 

Nelly stood for a moment transfixed by the spectacle of this 
gorgeously dressed creature, resplendent in blue gauze, 
bronzed boots, gilt sash, and flowing red feather. Then — so 
permanent is human affection — she threw down her old doll 
and ran forward, with outstretched arms, to welcome and hug 
the stranger. 

But the sum of her amazement was not yet made out. Once 
more Holdsworth dived into the mysterious cupboard and pro- 
duced the horse and cart, which, he told Nelly, was the chariot 
that had brought the young lady to his house, and without 
which she never condescended to take the air, being much too 
fine a lady to walk. The box of bricks followed ; and pres- 
ently Nelly was on the floor, taking up the three toys one after 
the other in quick succession, her avariciousness of enjoyment 
perplexed by the number of the objects that ministered to it. 

Holdsworth knelt by her side and watched her face. 

A man need not be a father to find something elevating and 
purifying in the contemplation of a child’s countenance, varied 
by tiny, innocent emotions, reflecting the little play of her 
small passions, as her eyes reflect the objects that surround 
her. But that subtle and sacred bond which unites a child’s 
life to a parent’s heart creaifes an impulse to such contemplation 
which makes the plea,sure sweeter than any other kind of pleas- 
ure, by the infusion of an exquisite pathos, mingled with the 
only kind of pride to which vanity seems to contribute noth- 
ing. 

The natural bitterness which Holdsworth felt in thinking 
that his little girl did not know him, that misfortune had thrust 
his love out of the sphere of her own and his wife’s life, was 
converted into tender melancholy by the emotions Nelly’s pres- 
ence excited, and left his pleasure unalloyed by pain. Here 
was a little being who was his at least ; his by a right no sin, 
no folly, no error could challenge ; indisputably his, to sur- 
vive, if God permitted, into his future, when the time should 
Come for him to call himself aloud by the name of Father, and 


FATHER AND CHILD. 


235 


ask her love as some recompense for that present sacrifice of his 
which was enforced bj grand obedience to the high laws of 
morality. 

How hard it was to be thns true to himself, thus true to his 
wife, thus true to the little one who must needs share some 
portion of that obligation of shame which would befall them 
all, were he to confess himseK, judge ! for you see him kneel- 
ing by his child’s side ; you may behold his love in his eyes ; 
you may know that no upturned luminous glance of hers that 
thrills along the chords of his passion, and makes his heart 
gush forth its over-full tenderness, even until his sight grows 
humid, and he turns his thoughts in a piteous aside to God for 
eourage and will, so to sustain this strange, pathetic hap- 
piness, that no sorrow shall follow it. 

“Nelly, we will have tea now,” he says; and he rings the 
bell, and then comes up to the child again, and turns her face 
up, kisses her suddenly, and seats himself at a distance with his 
chin upon his hand. 

Then Mrs. Parrot came in, armed with the tray, which she 
placed upon the table, while she challenged her lodger’s admi- 
ration by lightly lifting her gray eyes and smirking. 

Yes, it was very beautiful. The bouquet made the room 
odoriferous at once ; the birds-of -paradise looked splendid ; 
the cups were elegant enough to induce one to go on drinking 
tea, with stubborn disregard of the nervous system, for hours 
and hours together, if only for an excuse to handle them and 
have them under the eye. In order to bring little Nelly’s 
head a little above the level of the table, Holdsworth piled 
three or four of the folios on a chair, on which he seated her ; 
and that the two dolls might be seen to advantage, he very 
ingeniously tied them together, and set them on a chair, lean- 
ing against the table, with a plate and a slice of bread-and- 
butter before them ; whereat Nelly laughed rapturously, claj^- 
ping her hands and filling the room with sweet sounds. 

It was all fairy-land, these cups and toys and cakes and what 
not, to the little girl, whose tea at home was often no more 
than a slice of dry bread, when her step-father had drunk away 


236 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


tlie money he should have given to his wife, and left her 
without the means to purchase an ounce of butter. The sun 
was at the back of the house, and its rules of yellow light 
flooded the floor at the extremity of the apartment, and flung 
a golden haze over that portion of the room where the table 
stood. There was something so charming in the scene thus 
delicately lighted that Mrs. Parrot, who had been struggling 
with her modesty for some minutes, while she fidgeted over the 
plates and dishes, suddenly exclaimed : 

‘‘I humbly beg parding for the liberty, sir, but would you 
mind mother just takin’ one peep ? She came into the kitchen 
while I was dressin’ the tray, an’ I told her what was goin’ 
forward, an’ I think it ’ud do her heart good to see this beauti- 
ful show.” 

“ Let her come by all means,” replied Holdsworth, touched 
and diverted by the perfect simplicity of these people. 

Presently fell a respectful knock, and Mrs. Parrot re-entered, 
followed by a Eoman nose that came and vanished like an op- 
tical delusion near the handle of the door. 

“ Come in, mother ; the gentleman’s kind enough to say you 
may,” said Mrs. Parrot ; and in faltered the old woman, drop- 
ping an aged courtesy, and making her spectacles clatter in 
their wooden case as she strove to withdraw them. 

‘‘ Ain’t this a picter, mother ? ” 

“Niver see anything to aquil it,” replied the old lady, put- 
ting on her spectacles and gazing around her with many a con- 
vulsive motion of the head. “ Why, Sairey, them’s our best 
cups ! ” 

‘‘Yes, I told you I was usin’ them. Don’t you see the little 
gal, mother?” 

“ See her ? Yes, of course I do. But she don’t want an old 
’ooman like me to kiss her, eh, my pretty ? Pm very much 
obleeged, sir,” dropping a creaking courtesy, “ for the sight of 
this table.” 

“ Would your mother like one of these cakes for her tea? ” 
said Holdsworth. ’ 

“ Oh, sir, you’re very good. Mother, the gentleman wants | 
to know if you’ll accept of one of these cakes for your tea ? ” 


FATHER AND CHILD. 


237 


‘‘ Thank ye, sir. I relish a bit o’ somethin’ sweet now and 
agin,” replied the old lady, dropping another courtesy as she 
received the cake. “I was cook to Squire Harrowden, lar’ 
bless yer ! I dessay it were years afore you was born, and they 
did say as there niver was my aquil i’ the makin’ o’ pie-crust. 
I’ve cooked for as many as a hundred and tin persons, ay, that 
I have,” with intense earnestness, “ as Sairey ’ll bear me witr 
ness, for she’s heerd the story from her own father, as was 
game-keeper to the squire, an’ a more likely man you niver 
see, sir. His name was Cramp, which he was a Croydon man, 
as you may happen to know the name if you was iver in them 
parts.” 

“ Come, mother, we have stopped long enough,” exclaimed 
Mrs. Parrot, putting her hand upon the old lady’s arm. 

They both courtesied ; and then the old woman let fall the 
cake, which rolled under the table. Holds Worth recovered it 
for her ; which act of condescension was so overwhelming that 
she let the cake fall again, on which Mrs. Parrot lost her tem- 
per, and hurried the old dame through the door at a velocity 
to which her legs were quite unused, and possibly quite un- 
equal. Bhe might be heard feebly remonstrating in a voice 
similar to the sound a key makes when turned in a rusty lock, 
and then the door was closed, and Holdsworth and Nelly were 
left alone. 

******* 

If Mrs. Parrot had dared, she would have been glad to ad- 
vise Holdsworth “not to let the little gal eat too much, there 
bein’ nothing worse nor sweet-stuff for young stomachs, which 
finds milk-and-water sometimes too much for ’em.” But, hap- 
pily, Nelly was not a glutton ; besides, the majority of human 
beings at her age eat only as much as they want, and no more ; 
we wait until our judgment is matured, until life is precious, 
until we have experienced most of the distempers which arise 
from an overloaded stomach, before making ourselves thor- 
oughly ill with overfeeding ! 

By this time the child was perfectly at home with Holds- 
worth, and enjoying herself immensely, varying a bite at a slice 
of cake with a bite at some bread covered with jam, sipping 


238 


JOHN HOLDSWOETH, CHIEF MATE. 


the good milk Holdsworth had obtained for her with great 
gravity, and staring at the dolls, and then bending to make 
sure that her bricks had not taken to their heels while she was 
looking at the horse and cart, and that the horse Jiad not bolted 
with the cart while she was looking at her bricks. 

Holdsworth scarcely removed his eyes from her face. When 
he spoke to her there was a softness in his voice that melted 
like music on the ear. 

At last she pushed her plate away, and Holdsworth rang the 
bell, and giving Mrs. Parrot private instructions to make up a 
parcel of the remainder of the cakes, etc., ready for Nelly to 
take home with her, he clasped the child’s hand and went with 
her into the garden, she holding the new doll, he dragging the 
horse and cart after him. 

There was a square of grass in this garden, and a bench on 
it ; and here Holdsworth sat, while Nelly played with her toys. 

It was a roomy, old-fashioned garden, with aged walls, full 
of rusty nails and rotten ligatures, and a few tall pear-trees 
sheltering a small circumference of ground at their feet, and 
many fruit-trees sprawling wildly against the walls. The moss 
was like a carpet on the flint walk, and the box at the side of 
the bed was high and thick ; and at the top of the garden was 
an old hen-coop hedged about with wire-work, behind which 
some dozen hens scratched the soil for worms, and made the 
air drowsy with their odd, half -suppressed mutterings. 

Moods possess us, sometimes, when such a scene as this will 
affect more pleasurably than a garden bursting with exotics, 
and tended with the highest artistic judgment. There is 
something very calming in homely shrubs, and old fruit-trees 
with their roots hidden by the long, vivid grass, and uncouth 
weeds thrusting their rude shapes among violet beds, and the 
solemn chatter of barn-door hens sunning themselves in hot 
spaces, or lying like dead things with a wing half buried in 
sand and dirt, will sometimes impart a more agreeable tran- 
quillity to the mind than the choicest of songs of nightingales 
warbled in groves under a full moon. 

Holdsworth suffered the child to have her full sportive will 
for some time, and then, thinking her tired, called her to him. 


FATHER AND CHILD. 


239 


She ran to him at once, and he perched her on his knee. 

• ‘‘Is Nelly afraid of me now ? ” 

“No, Nelly dot afraid. Nelly loves ’oo.’^ 

In proof whereof she put her mouth up for a kiss. 

“ Will Nelly come to see me every day 

“Det.” 

“ Does Nelly’s papa love her ? ” 

He believed that she had been taught to regard Mr. Conway 
as her papa. It was a sore tax upon the gentle mood then on 
him to put the question in that form, but he wished to learn if 
his child were well treated by her step father. 

The question puzzled her. Indeed, she was a very little 
thing, and backward in her speech. It was delicious to see 
her knit her tiny brows, and gaze with her full, deep, earnest 
eyes on Holdsworth, with a half intelligence in her face, and 
all the rest child -sweetness. 

Like all children who cannot answer a question, she remained 
silent ; a hint parents would sometimes do well to take. 

“ Does Nelly get plenty to eat ? ” 

“ Det.” 

This was not quite true ; but then Holdsworth, who knew 
nothing of children, was ignorant that little infants will borrow 
their answers from your voice or face, so that to get an affirm- 
ative from them you have only to speak or look affirmatively. 

“ Does mamma teach Nelly to pray ? ” 

‘ ‘ Det. Nelly pray. ” 

And to prove how well she could pray she put her two hands 
together, hung down her head, and whispered, 

“ Dod bless dear mamma and Nelly. Dod bless little Nelly’s 
dear papa.” 

She looked up coyly, as though ashamed. 

Dear reader, smile not at these simple words, nor think them 
puerile. When we behold a little child praying, we know how 
the angels worship God. 

A sob broke from Holdsworth as she ceased. Who was little 
Nelly’s dear papa but he ? His wife’s love had dictated that 
prayer, and it was their child who told him of her love. Ah ! 
God had deigned to hear that prayer, whispered by a wife’s 


240 


JOHN TI0LD8W0RTII CHIEF MATE. 


heart through the lips of her infant, and had blessed him with 
this knowledge of her devotion, and had brought him from afar 
to know it. 

No ; not want of love hud made her faithless to his memory. 
Faithless she was not-^^he could not be if her heart nightly 
spoke to God of him through her child. 

Let him look at the little girl now ; let him feel the fulness 
of the love she inspired in him ; let him imagine that he was 
desolate and friendless and in want, and that this frail flower, 
this tender little lamb, pined and grew wan and ragged for 
food and raiment ; let him mingle with his own emotion the 
pain and torment which a mother’s heart would feel in the pres- 
ence of this baby’s sufferings, and then let him condemn his 
wife, if he could, for sacrificing her memories and accepting 
food and shelter from any hand that offered them under any 
honorable conditions. 

He could not speak again for some time ; and Nelly, grow- 
ing tired of sitting, slipped from his knee, and betook herself 
to her toys. 

Then his eyes kindled anew, and he watched her eagerly. 
He longed to ask her questions— to hear her lisp him sweet 
assurances of his Dolly’s love— to learn from her little lips that 
her mother Tvas his, had been, would always be his, though 
separated from him by a barrier as formidable as death. But 
there was no question he could put which the child might 
not repeat again ; for, backward as she was in speech, her 
small, imperfect language would be intelligible enough to the 
mother. His curiosity would be too unnatural in a stranger 
not to excite Dolly’s suspicions ; and if they should not even 
lead to the discovery of his secret, they miglit be the means of 
breaking off all intercourse between him and his child. 

And so he remained silent ; and presently, as he sat watch- 
ing the little creature pushing her doll to and fro in the cart 
and talking to herself, a calm came upon his heart — a sense of 
exquisite repose and security. You would have said, to look 
upon him and remark the placid sweetness that reigned in his 
face, that the child’s i^rayer had veritably done its office — that 
God had blessed him indeed. 


FATHER AND CHILD. 


241 


A long hour i^assed. The garden was fresh and cool ; the 
declining sun mellowed the gray walls and kindled many 
little suns in the vine-draped windows; the sparrows flitted 
quickly with short chirrups from tree to tree ; and the croon- 
ing of the hens added completeness to the peace and tenderness 
that breathed in the air. 

Once again Nelly was on Holds worth’s knee, fetching vague 
replies from her struggling perceptions for his questions, 
when Mrs. Parrot came out of the house and said that Mrs. 
Conway was in the sitting-room, waiting to take her little girl 
home. 

Holdsworth glanced quickly at the window of the room, but 
did not see her. He put the child down hurriedly, and said, 

“ There, my little pet, run along with Mrs. Parrot.” 

“Won’t you come and speak to Mrs, Conway, sir?” asked 
Mrs. Parrot. “ She wants to thank you for your kindness.” 

“ No, no, pray dron’t let her call it kindness,” stammered 
Holdsworth, who was very pale. 

“Pm sure she’ll take it unkind if you won’t let her thank 
you, sir,” said Mrs. Parrot, earnestly. “ She’s been watching 
you both through the window for the last five minutes, an’ I 
couldn’t help tollin’ her what a fine treat you have given Miss 
Nelly. Besides, she’s seen them toys,” she added, looking at 
Nelly’s presents. 

A whole lifetime of nervous pain was in that moment’s pause. 
Could he meet her, speak to her, and remain unknown ? His 
desire was to hide. It seemed inconceivable that in five years 
such a change should be wrought in him as to render him un- 
recognizable by his wife. 

But the pressing necessity of immediate action was too sud- 
den to give his imagination time to alarm his judgment. He 
must dare the encounter, since it was not to be obviated by 
any means which might not prove more productive of suspicion 
than bold confrontment. He laid the utmost tyranny of his 
will upon his feelings, and saying, 

“ Perhaps you are right, Mrs. Parrot, Mrs. Conway will think 
me rude if I do not see her,” took Nelly’s hand and walked 
with her to the house. 

16 


242 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


Dolly was seated in an arm-chair near the fire-place, leaning 
her cheek on her hand. Her attitude showed that she had 
been watching the group in the garden. 

She stood up when Holdsworth entered and bowed to him. 

Nelly ran to her, holding up her doll. 

“ Look, mamma ! ” 

The action was timely ; it enabled Holdsworth to walk to 
the side of the window, where the shadow lay darkest, and 
there he stood. 

This he had sense enough to do ; but for a moment or two 
the room swam round him, and he grasped the back of a 
chair. 

Would she know Mm ? 

That thought swept like a galvanic shock through him, and 
made his blood tingle. 

It brought hope with it and fear j a wild, paradoxical emo- 
tion of yearning love and the blighting sense of the sorrow 
and dishonor recognition would involve. 

I have to thank you very much, Mr. Hampden, for your 
attention to my little girl,” she said, in a low, sweet voice — 
how remembered ! 

‘‘Her society gives me great happiness,” he replied, with 
the faintest tremor in his tone. 

It might have been that sign of agitation which made her 
look at him suddenly. 

His gaze sank ; but he felt her eyes upon his face, and the 
eager, restless scrutiny that filled them. 

Bujb if ever a memory of something infinitely beloved to her 
had been renewed by his reply, it melted upon her conviction 
of the death of him whom Holdsworth’s voice had recalled to 
her, as snow upon water. 

Could it have been otherwise ? 

Not five years — not twenty years — not a lifetime, maybe, of 
ordinary sufierings could have so transformed his face but that 
her love could have pierced the mask. 

But the unnatural misery of those ten days in the open boat 
— the hunger that had wasted, the agonizing thirst that had 
twisted his face out of all likeness to what it had been, the 


FATHER AND CHILD. 


243 


growth of beard and mustache that hid the lower part of the 
countenance, the gray hair, the bare forehead, the deformed 
eyebrows, the rugged indent between the brows, the stooped 
form — here was a transformation that would have defied a 
mother’s instincts, that would have offered an impenetrable 
front to perception barbed into keenness by the profoundest 
love that ever warmed the heart. 

And yet, looking at this woman attentively — looking at her 
gazing at yonder man, cowering, it might also seem, in the 
friendly shadow of the wall — there was something in her eyes, 
something in her face, something in her whole manner, that 
would have quickened your pulse with a moment of breathless 
suspense. 

In such matters, as in the loss of memory, we must recognize 
the existence of a deep spiritual insight having no reference to 
the revelations of the mind. There are convictions which do 
not satisfy, though cemented by logic and acted on by their 
possessor with sincere conscience. Against such convictions 
instincts will surge as waves break upon a shore. Echoes are 
awakened, but are thought purposeless. And the conviction 
is still maintained, while the secret truth rolls at its base. 

The voice of Holdsworth, but not his face, had set Dolly’s 
instincts in motion. 

But then her conviction that Holdsworth was dead was a 
permanent one ; and under it her instincts subsided into un- 
easy sleep, though there was a shadow of melancholy on lier 
face .when she removed her eyes, which had not been there 
before Holdsworth spoke. 

“I hope Nelly has been good, Mr. Hampden.” 

“Very good, indeed.” 

He seemed to know that the crisis was passed, for he 
breathed more freely, looked at her, and removed his hand 
from the chair. 

“ These toys are veiy beautiful. I really feel unable to ex- 
press my gratitude to you.” 

“ You owe me no thanks. My gratitude is due to you for 
allowing your sweet little girl to come and see me.” 

“ Mrs. Parrot tells me you are very fond of children.” 


244 


JOHN IIOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


« Very. I hope little Nelly will often be here. I am quite 
alone, and she cheers me with her pretty prattle.” 

She glanced at him quickly and sympathetically as he said 
he was alone, and sighed. 

Holdsworth noticed that her dress was very shabby, but her 
beauty lost nothing by her apparel. He thought her looking 
sweeter than when he had left her five years before. Her riper 
charms were made touching by an under coloring of sadness, 
and there was languor in her movements and speech — sign of 
heart-weariness. 

“It is time for us to get home, Nelly,” she said, looking 
uneasily toward the window. ‘ ‘ Go and give Mr. Hampden a 
kiss, and thank him prettily for his beautiful presents.” 

The child approached Holdsworth, who kissed her gently, 
repressing the passionate emotion that, had he been alone, 
would have prompted liim to raise her in his arms and press 
her to his breast. 

“Here are some little cakes,” he said, taking the parcel 
Mrs. Parrot had j)repared, and giving them to the child, but 
addressing Dolly, “ which, will amuse her to play with. When 
may she come again, Mrs. Conway ? ” 

“ Oh, she must not intrude — ” 

“No, no! she cannot come too often. Pray let me make a 
companion of her. She has completely won my heart. May 
she not walk with me sometimes ? I promise to take as much 
care of her as if she were my own child.” i 

He had advanced a step and spoke eagerly, bending forward ; ; 
but, meeting her full eyes fixed on him with a little frown of ^ 
mingled fear and amazement, he turned pale, fell back a step, •; 
and forcing a smile, said hurriedly : } 

‘ ‘ I am sometimes — sometimes laughed at for — for my love 
of children.” J 

She did not answer him for some moments, but stood watch- ; 
ing him with a startled expression, suggesting both fascination . 
and terror — then she averted her eyes slowly, the color went ; 
out of her cheeks, and she murmured something under her ^ 
breath. I 

“You remind me of one who was very dear to me — I begi 


FATHER AND GUILD. 


24:5 


your pardon — there is often a strange resemblance in the tones 
of voices.” 

She took the child’s hand, and was mechanically walking to 
the door. 

‘‘ Me want dolly and horse,” said Nelly, holding back. 

Holdsworth picked up the toys and went into the passage to 
open the door. They bowed to each other, and Holdsworth 
returned to the sitting-room. 

The moment he had dreaded had come and was gone. He 
had met his wife, spoken with her, and she did not Imow 
him. 

He had noticed the sudden surprise and fear that had come 
into her face ; he had noticed the deeply thoughtful mood in 
which she had quitted the house. But these things proved no 
more than this : that a note familiar to her ear still lived in 
the tones of his voice, and had aroused for a while tho mem- 
ory which rarely disturbed her now, save in dreams at night. 

Well ! what he wished had happened. Suffering had de- 
formed him, time had changed him to some purpose. He 
could play the game of life anew, as one freshly come upon 
the stage. His paradise was closed to him, but he could stand 
at the gate and be a looker-on at the sphere in which his most 
sacred interests played their parts ; he could respect and up- 
hold, by his withdrawal and secrecy, her whose vows to him 
his imagined death had cancelled ; he could have his child for 
a playmate, and sow in her heart those seeds of love which, if 
God should ever suffer her to know her father, would, in the 
fulness of time, bless him with an abundant harvest of happi- 
ness. 

But, though he would not, for the worth of his life, have 
had things otherwise than they were, yet, as he stood in the 
room from which the light had departed with his child’s sweet 
face, the tears rose to his eyes and sobs convulsed him. 

Oh, it was hard to look back upon his sufferings, and feel 
that nothing but suffering yet remained ; hard and bitter to 
behold those whom he loved, those whose love would spring 
to meet him were he to make but one little sign, and to know 


246 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


that he was as dead to them as if the great desolate sea rolled 
over his body. 

But here was a noble self-sacrificing heart that could not 
long mourn its own afflictions. High virtues are always preg- 
nant with high consolations, and a good man’s grief for him- 
self is short because he carries many tender ministers to it in 
his bosom. There was no triumph now to complete, for his 
conquest over impulse had been achieved at Southbourne. He 
drew to the open window at the back, where the air was 
fragrant with the smell of hay from the meadows beyond and 
the cool evening perfumes of flowers hidden amid the shrub- 
bery in the garden, and watched the sun sinking, while his 
thoughts followed it to the distant deep, whose breast it over- 
hung, and on whose lonely surface he had watched it rising 
and setting with a despair the memory of which filled him with 
thoughts too deep for tears. 


CHAPTEE XXVin. 

DOIiLV’S THOUGHTS. 

Three days passed before Holdsworfch saw Nelly again. He 
then, from his window, beheld her playing on the pavement 
opposite with the horse and cart he had given her. 

He called, and she came running over to him gleefully at 
once. 

Mrs. Parrot was despatched to request Mrs. Conway’s leave 
that Nelly might stop to tea with Mr. Hampden, and returned 
to say that ‘‘the little gal might, with the greatest of 
pleasure.” 

Again and again Nelly was summoned out of the road by 
Holdsworth, sometimes of a morning, sometimes of an after- 
noon, when he could see her. The little creature soon learned 
to resist all her mother’s suggestions that she should play in 
the back garden ; she liked the pavement in the road, es- 
pecially the pavement opposite Holdsworth’s lodgings, and, 


DOLLY ^8 THOUGHTS. 


247 


with an air of inscrutable mystery, would keep a sharp lookout 
for Holdsworth, while she feigned to be absorbed in her toy. 
Ah, the artfulness of some little girls ! But then there were 
always gingerbread and cakes for her in the miraculous cup- 
board in the corner of Holdsworth’s room ; and the temptation 
to obtain these luxuries, and to evade the slice of bread and 
cup of thin milk-and-water which formed her evening meal at 
home, was sometimes powerful enough to send her toddling 
out of the back garden, where her mother placed her, into the 
road, actually unobserved by mamma, who, imagining that she 
still played in the garden, would be astonished by Mrs. Par- 
rot coming across and saying that Miss Nelly was with Mr. 
Hampden, and jDlease might she stop to tea. 

Often, if Holdsworth had the good fortune to see his little 
girl in the morning, or early in the afternoon, he would put on 
his hat, and, leaving word with Mrs. Parrot to tell Mrs. Conway, 
should she ask, that he had taken Nelly for a walk, clasp the 
child’s hand and stroll with her into the town. 

Nelly enjoyed these rambles hugely. Their two figures con- 
trasted strangely, and many a woman’s eyes would follow them, 
because the measured step, the thoughtful brow, the sunken 
face of the man, and the golden -haired child at his side, with 
her bright young face and big eyes drinking in the sights and 
processions of the streets, and little twinkling feet, tripping so 
fleetly and dancingly along that one would say she held his hand 
to prevent herself flying away, formed a picture which a wo- 
man’s heart would love to contemplate for its prettiness. 

They would sometimes turn out of the hot streets when 
Nelly’s listless glance would show her weary at last of the 
splendors of the toy-shops (before which they regularly 
stopped), and wander to the river’s side ; and there, in the 
shadow of trees, Holdsworth would rest himself while Nelly 
cleared the space around her of all the daisies and buttercups 
she could find. 

These were hours of deep and calm enjoyment to Holds- 
worth, who, until the chimes of the town clocks warned him to 
rise, would lie with his head supported on his elbow, that his 
face might be close to Nelly’s, that he might catch every fluctu- 


248 


JOHM HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


ating expression that made her eyes an endless series of sweet 
signs, that he might hear every faltering syllable that fell from 
her lips. 

Soft and cool were the sounds the river made as its gentle 
tide gurgled a secret music among the high rushes, or rippled 
round stumps of trees or projections of stone lodged in the 
bank. Winged insects flashed many-colored lights upon the 
eye as they swept from shadow to shadow, parted by a rivulet 
of sunshine falling tlirough the openings in the trees. Now 
and again a trout leaped with a pleasant and lazy splash. From 
the shores opposite, behind the trees, came the smell of the 
warm red clover, mingled with the multitudinous hum of bees. 
Afar, at a bend of the stream, an angler might stand watching 
his quill, with his head, and shoulders mirrored in the clear 
water — so exquisite the counterfeit that one might easily make 
a parable out of it, and sermonize slumberously, as befitted 
the drowsy influence of the hot day, on those illusions of life 
which mock the heart they mislead in its search after truth. 

Once, when Holdsworth was taking Nelly home after a long 
rest on the river’s edge, he met Mr. Conway, who stared veiy 
hard, but passed on without addressing the child. Nelly drew 
close to Holdsworth when she saw the man. 

Holdsworth knew Conway perfectly well by sight now. The 
dentist had repeatedly passed the window at which Holdsworth 
stationed himself on the lookout for Nelly ; and of late, it 
might have been noticed, he would glance with no unfriendly 
expression toward Mrs. Parrot’s old-fashioned house. 

His walk, when he did not actually reel, as he very often did, 
might have been studied with some disgust as an illustration 
of character. It was a species of gliding movement, such as a 
man might be supposed to adopt whose self-abasement he 
himself holds irrevocable, and who has made up his mind no 
longer to walk but to sneak through life. The influence of 
importunate creditors might be marked in the quick, fuiiive 
glancing of the eye, that wandered from side to side and chal- 
lenged every individual it rested upon. One half-dulled per- 
ception of his social obligations might yet linger ; or perhaps 
it was an innate love of dress which, from being a vice in pros- 


DOLLY ^8 THOU GUTS. 


249 


perity, would degenerate into a kind of sickly virtue in poverty, 
that gave him an indescribable air of seedy jauntiness, tilting 
his soiled hat, swathing his neck in a bright kerchief, and fur- 
nishing his body with a small-waisted frock-coat. 

It was very natural that Mrs. Parrot’s lodger should be 
somewhat of a mystery to him. Having no liking for children 
himself, but, on the contrary, a rather decided aversion to 
them, he could not understand what this Mr. Hampden saw in 
Nelly to make him so prodigal in his gifts, so eager for her 
society. 

Who was he ? As Mrs. Parrot made a point of avoiding him, 
he could not very well question her about her lodger ; but 
since she was the only person in Hanwitch who was likely to 
know anything about him, he got one of her tradesmen to 
cross-examine her. But this ruse resulted in little. All that 
Mrs. Parrot could tell was that her lodger’s name was Hamp- 
den, that he was a gentleman with rather queer habits, and 
that he seemed to have lots of money. 

It was something to find out that he had lots of money. 

On the strength of this Mr. Conway suddenly discovered 
Nelly to be a very interesting child, and never seemed more 
pleased than when she was over the way at Mrs. Parrot’s. 

The fact was, the dentist had an idea. It was a small, 
contemptible, tricky idea, such as poverty and drink would 
beget between them. He kept it to himself, and waited. 

Dolly, of course, was deeply gratified by Mr. Hampden’s 
affection for her child. At first her curiosity had been mor- 
bidly excited by this stranger. Something there had been in 
his voice which stirred memory to its centre ; and the strange, 
baffling, elusive thoughts it had induced kept her spiritless 
and nervous for some days after the interview between them. 
Twice she dreamed of the husband she believed dead. The 
dream, in both instances, was perplexed and left no determin- 
able impression ; but its iteration increased her melancholy, 
and made memory painful and importunate. 

She accounted for her feelings by referring them to the rec- 
ollections which had been abruptly renewed — dragged, so to 
say, from the grave in which they lay hidden ; and this clew 


250 


JOHN HOLDSWOETH, CHIEF MATE. 


being i3nt into her hand, left her easy as to the raison d'etre of 
her depression. 

Indeed, no suspicion of this stranger’s identity with Holds- 
worth could have entered her mind without being instantly 
followed by conviction. The thought never occurred to her ; 
how could it? She believed him dead, and the permanent 
habit of this belief took the quality of established proof of his 
death. 

But even if she had doubted his death; if ever she had 
cherished the hope that he would one day return to her — a 
hope that she had held to passionately for a while, but which 
had dropped dead out of her heart when she gave her hand to 
Mr. Conway — no memory that she had of him would admit the 
possibility of the change that had been wrought in him. 

There was a sign to be made — a look, a smile, a whisper — 
which would flash perception into her, knit into compact form 
the thoughts which his voice had troubled, and confess him 
her HUSBAND, though hollow-faced and wan, though stricken 
as with age, though presenting the ineffaceable memorials of 
grievous l^rture. 

But, until this sign should be made, he must be a stranger 
to her ; a puzzle, perhaps ; a man of eccentric habits, and of 
an odd and striking aspect ; but not her husband. 

Nor, strange as his suddenly acquired affection for Nelly 
might seem to others, could it come to her as a surprise. The 
mother’s vanity would easily account for the pleasure her little 
daughter gave to the lonely man. 

Once, when Mrs. Parrot, meeting her in the road, said that 
‘ ‘ It did seem strange that a man an’ a child, as had niver set 
eyes on each other before, should love each other in the way 
Mr. Hampden and Miss Nelly did,” Dolly answered, ‘‘Yes; 
but though I am her mother, yet I must say that Nelly is a 
pretty and very winning child, and there is nothing uncommon 
in strangers taking a fancy to children.” 

No ; that was quite true, Mrs. Parrot answered ; and told a 
story of a rich lady admiring a little beggar-girl in the street ; 
and how the rich lady took the wench into her carrich, and 
got the parient’s leaf to adopt her ; and how the beggar-giii 


DOLLY' 8 THOU OUTS. 


251 


came into the rich lady’s fortin’, and grew up into a stately an’ 
’aughty woman, an’ manied a lord, she did, as was beknown to 
many. 

‘‘It ’ud be a comfortin’ thing to you, ma’am, don’t you 
think, if Mr. Hampden was to adopt your little gal. It ’ud 
be a relief to your feelings, wouldn’t it ? ” Mrs. Parrot said. 

If some half-formed thought, bearing a resemblance to Mrs. 
Parrot’s view, had flitted across Dolly’s mind, let us not mar- 
vel. Never was her mood sadder, never was her secret grief 
sharper, than when her child’s future foniied the subject of 
her thoughts. Who would give Nelly a home if she died? 
Who would love the little thing ; rear her in the knowledge of 
God, of her broken-hearted mother, of her poor, drowned 
father ? 

“I could not part with her, Mrs. Parrot ; she is the only 
link that binds me to by-gone happy days. I could not spare 
her. My life would be too lonely for me to support it. But I 
often pray to God that she may find a friend — such a friend as 
I am sure Mr. Hampden would make her — when I am dead.” 

This hope — that Mr. Hampden would proje that friend — 
was the real source of the comfort that filled her heart each 
time she saw her little girl trip across to Mrs, Parrot’s house. 

She seldom saw Holdsworth. Sometimes she thought he 
avoided her. Twice, when she was leaving or returning to her 
house, she saw him in the porch, and each time he hastily 
withdrew when she would have crossed over to speak to him. 
On rare occasions she met him coming from the town. Once 
he raised his hat and passed on : once she went up to him to 
thank him for his kindness to Nelly. He answered her hur- 
riedly, speaking with an effort, and terminated the interview 
almost abruptly by bowing and leaving her. Then, again, his 
voice affected her powerfully. She stopped and looked after 
him, and went on her way, brooding, with a little frown of 
anxious, painful thought. 

On his part, the weight of his secret when they thus met 
face to face was insupportable. The wild msh of impulse 
combated by inflexible resolution created a conflict in his 
breast beyond his capacity of endurance. He could not have 


252 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


prolonged a conversation with her. It was shocking to feel 
himself unknown ; it was shocking to feel that he might betray 
himself. But he could watch her from his window. He knew 
now her hours of going and coming, and would station him- 
self behind the curtain, and follow her with exquisite tender- 
ness in his eyes, and sadness, crueller than words can tell, in 
his heart. 

How was this all to end ? 

Here was the thought that now tormented him. Six weeks 
had passed since he came to Hanwitch. He was living fru- 
gally, indeed, and of the money he had brought with him from 
Australia a large portion still remained ; but his few hundred 
pounds made a very slender capital ; and when they were spent, 
what then ? 

He knew very well that he could return to Sydney, that Mr. 
Sherman would welcome him back and reinstate him in his 
old post. But the mere thought of leaving England was 
misery to him. Suppose, under any plea, he obtained Dolly’s 
leave to take Nelly with him, could he part from Dolly ? He 
might never see, her again. Then let him think of her com- 
panion ; of the sordid, hungry life he knew she was leading— 
knew, ttough he could devise no expedient for relieving her 
that might not be resented as an affront and lose him Nelly’s 
companionship. 

He would rather leave her in her grave than leave her as 
she was. 

If urgent distress should ever come upon her, he would be 
at hand to succor and support her. And that such urgent 
distress must come sooner or later — that the day sooner or 
later must arrive when she and her child would be without a 
home, he had but to watch the maundering man that passed 
his windows backward and forward day after day, aimless, 
sodden, and growing shabbier and shabbier every week in his 
appearance, to know. 


A VISIT. 


253 


CHAPTEE XXIX. 

A VISIT. 

How was Holdsworth to get a living ? For what was he fit ? 
He was a good clerk ; Mr. Sherman . had called him so, at 
least ; Hanwitch was a tolerably large place, and he ought to 
find no difficulty in obtaining employment. At any rate he 
must try. 

One morning he put on his hat and walked into the town. 

When he reached the High Street he stopped and considered. 

There was a bank ; he could apply there. Then there was 
a brewery. If these failed, there remained an insurance office. 

These represented j)olite avocations. 

There were shops in abundance, where men better looking 
than he smiled over counters, and carried parcels, and stood 
bare-headed on the pavement at carriage-doors. But Holds- 
worth was still too much the sailor at heart to tolerate the no- 
tion of shop-serving. He would start a little school rather than 
do that. And indeed school-keeping seemed inore feasible 
than anything else. Mrs. Parrot’s lodgings would serve him 
there ; boys would assemble by degrees ; and he could set and 
hear lessons, and teach writing and mathematics, as well as 
any university man. 

Meanwhile, let him try the bank. 

It faced the market-place in the High Street, had a well-worn 
door-step and stout, noisy swinging doors. Holdsworth en- 
tered, and found himself in a badly lighted office, with a coun- 
ter across it, behind which were three or four clerks. A man 
who looked a fourth-rate farmer was paying money in, and 
while he counted a great accumulation of greasy silver, which 
he had discharged in company with a number oi soiled, infra- 
grant checks out of a leather bag, he paused at every twenty to 
submit an observation of a rural nature to the intelligence of 
an elderly personage with long whiskers, and a somewhat He- 
braical cast of visage, behind the counter. 


254 


JOHN IlOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


The manager, for so the long- whiskered man was, observing 
Holdsworth to be a stranger, politely asked him his busi- 
ness. 

‘‘Can I speak to the manager?*’ 

“Certainly, sir ; /am the manager. Walk this way please.” 

Saying which, the manager bustled importantly into a back 
room, and threw open a side -door for Holdsworth to enter. 

“ Pray be seated, sir. Nice weather.” 

And the manager drew a chair to a desk, clasped his hands 
on a volume of interest tables, and fixed his eyes on Holds- 
worth. 

“I have called to inquire, if you are in want of a clerk,” 
said Holdsworth. 

“ I beg your pardon? ” exclaimed the manager. 

Holdsworth repeated his remark, adding that he was in want 
of a situation, and would be glad to fill any vacancy there 
might be in the staff of the bank clerks. 

The manager who had expected something very different 
from this, got up instantly ; his business smile vanished, he 
thrust his hands into his breeches pockets, and exclaimed, 

“ Clerk, sir ! Who told you we wanted a clerk ? ” 

“ Nobody. I have called here at my own suggestion.” 

“ God bless my heart ! You are quite out of order, sir! 
Beally, these intrusions upon my time — You should have 
explained your wish at the counter. When we want a clerk we 
know where to find one, backed, sir, with first-class securities 
and influential recommendations.” 

“Then I have made a mistake, that’s all,” said Holdsworth, 
surveying the manager with great disgust ; and paying no fur- 
ther heed to the protests with which the other followed him to 
the door, he walked into the High street. 

This summary treatment was enough to last him one day. 
His indignation yielded to depression, and he returned slowly 
and moodily to his lodgings. 

This was the first time in his life he had ever made an appli- 
cation for employment ; and his reception, which was really 
genteel and civil compared to the receptions experienced by 
men old and young, every day, in search of work at the hands 


A VISIT. 


255 


of employers, wounded his sensibility and filled him with a 
sense of degradation. 

He regained his lodgings, and endeavored to console himself 
with philosophy. 

Philosophy, says Eochefoucauld, triumphs over future and 
past ills ; but present ills triumph over iDliilosophy. 

His sensibility did not smart the less because he reflected 
that hundreds of better men than himself had been insulted by 
rejections as offensive as that with which his inquiry had been 
encountered. 

Thoughts of something tender and innocent will often quell 
the stubbornest warmth. . Holdsworth grew mild in a moment 
when his mind went to little Nelly. 

‘‘ I’ll try the brewery to-morrow,” he said to himself ; “ and 
if that fails me, I’ll advertise for a situation ; and if nothing 
comes of that, 111 start a school.” 

Thus thinking, he walked to the window, hoping to see his 
child in the road. 

Nobody was visible but the old politician with the inflamed 
face, who was pacing slowly along the pavement, his hands 
locked behind him, his eyes bent downward, and his brow 
frowning grimly. Presently, Holdsworth knew, the other old 
i:)olitician, who lived at the corner house, would come out, and 
there would be much gestieulation, and violent declamation, 
and frequent pauses, and moppings of the forehead with red 
silk pocket-handkerchiefs. Eain had fallen in the night, and 
cleansed the little gardens in front of the villas of the three 
weeks’ accumulation of dust that had settled upon them, and 
freshened up the leaves and grass. In the bit of ground be- 
fore Mrs. Parrot’s house the flowers had withered on their 
stalks, but the shrubs still wore the bright greenness of sum- 
mer ; the soil was dark and rich with the grateful moisture, 
and breathed a fragrance of its own upon the morning air. 

Holdsworth was about to quit the window when he caught 
sight of Mr. Conway coming out of his gate. He fell a stei? 
back, and watched the man from behind the curtain. Mr. 
Conway advanced a few yards along his own side of the road, 
and then crossed, with his eyes fixed on Holdsworth’s window. 


256 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


Was he coining to the house ? He moved softly and fur- 
tively, and when he was abreast of Mrs. Parrot’s gate threw a 
glance behind him, pushed the gate open, and knocked. 

As Holdsworth did not know the man to speak to, he did not 
for a moment suppose that this visit was meant for him. Much 
was he surprised, and even agitated, when Mrs. Parrot came in 
and said that Mr. Conway was in the passage, and would like 
to see him. 

The first idea that rushed into Holdsworth’s head was, ‘ ‘ I am 
known ! ” But conjectures were out of the question, for the 
man was waiting. “ Pray show Mr. Conway in,” he said ; and 
in Mr. Conway came. 

Holdsworth bowed, and so did the other, with a kind of spas- 
modic grace — a good bow spoiled by nervousness. He had 
dressed himself with care ; he was cleanly shaved, his hair was 
carefully brushed, his shirt-collar was white, and his boots 
shone. 

Holdsworth had never before seen him so close. The light 
from the window fell upon his face, and showed the cobweb of 
veins in his eyes, the puffy whiteness of his skin, the blueness 
of his lips, the tinge of gleaming purple about his nostrils, 
and all the other signals which the alcoholic fiend stamps upon 
the countenances of his votaries, so that, let them go where 
they will, they may be known and loathed by honest men as 
his adopted children. 

But he was sober now ; as sober as a man can be who has 
drunk but a glass of ale since he left his bed, but whose flesh 
is soaked with the abomination of the taverns, and whose brain 
can never be steady for the fumes that rise incessantly into it. 

‘‘Mr. Ham^Dden, I believe?” he exclaimed, in a creamy 
voice, standing near the door, which Mrs. Parrot had shut be- 
hind him, and twisting his hat in his hands. 

“Yes; pray be seated,” replied Holdsworth, looking at him 
steadily, certain now that the object of this visit w^as not what 
he had imagined it. 

Mr. Conway sat down, and put his hat on the floor. His 
embarrassment, when his business should come to be known, 
might show a possibility of redemption, or at least satisfy us 


A VISIT. 


257 


that most of the bad qualities he was accredited with might 
have been absorbed into his nature with the drink he swal- 
lowed. No thoroughly bad man could feel the nervousness 
that disturbed him. 

“I have called, Mr. Hampden, to thank you for your kind- 
ness to my little step-daughter. Indeed, sir, both my wife and 
myself thoroughly appreciate your goodness. Believe us, we do. 

‘ ‘ Pray do not trouble to thank me. She is a sweet child, 
and it makes me happy to have her,” answered Holdsworth, 
now at his ease, and studying his visitor with curiosity and 
surprise. 

“Ah! she is indeed a sweet child. A x^erfect treasure to 
her mother, and quite a little sunbeam in my house — dark- 
ened, I regret to say, by misfortunes beyond 2ny control to 
repair.” 

“I am Sony to hear that.” 

‘ ‘ I never can sufficiently deplore having adopted so ungrate- 
ful a vocation as dentistry. I was born to better things, Mr. 
Hampden. My father had an influential x^osition under Govern- 
ment ; but he died in poverty, and I was apprenticed by an 
uncle — Pray forgive me. These matters cannot interest you. 
Privations press heavily upon a man at my time of life. Den- 
tistry seems to fail me ; and yet, when I look around, I find no 
other calling which I am qualified to espouse.” 

He sighed, and pulled out a x^ocket-handkerchief, with which 
he wiped his mouth. 

Holdsworth was silent. 

“ Poverty I could endure were I alone in the world,” con- 
tinued Mr. Conway ; ‘ but it is unendurable to me to witness 
the best of women and the dearest of little phildren in want. 
My poor wife does not complain, but I witness her secret 
sufferings in her wasting form and irrex^ressible tears, and it 
goes to my heart, sir, to see her, and feel my miserable inca- 
pacity to relieve her.” 

‘ ‘ Do you mean to say that she is actually in want ? ” ex- 
claimed Holdsworth, in a low voice. 

“Yes, sir; we all are. As I hope to be saved, I haven’t 
more than two shillings in the wide world ! ” 

17 


258 


JOHJSr IIOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


‘‘ Have you no source of income outside your profession ? ” 

‘‘No. I did well in the High Street, but I had many rivals 
and enemies who spread lying reports about me, and lost me 
my best patients. Give a dog a bad name ! I left my establish- 
ment in the heart of the town, and came into this road because 
rent was cheap here, and God knows if I can tell how I have 
lived since ! ” he cried, passionately, his natural bad temper 
breaking through his affectation of suffering and ill-treatment. 
“ The pawnbroker has been my only friend ! Am I to sell the 
bed from under me ? Oh, sir, I think of my wife, of my poor 
little child — for my child she is, if love can make her so — and 
the thought is death to me ! ’’ 

He flourished his handkerchief and looked piteously at ' 
Holdsworth. 

“How can I serve you ? ” 

“ Ah, sir ! ” exclaimed Mr. Conway, sinking his voice into a 
yet more whining note, the while a gleam entered into his eyes ; 
“ what right have I to trespass upon the benevolence of a 
stranger? of a gentleman who has already placed me under 
a thousand obligations by his kindness to my little daughter ? 
I feel myself a wretch, sir, when I reflect upon the unfortunate 
position I have placed my -poor wife in. I was flourishing in 
those days ; I could have given — I did give her and her baby a 
good home. But what position is so secure that it can stand 
against the lies of rivalry and jealousy ? the slanderous reports 
of ruffians who make capital for themselves out of a neighbor’s 
trifling errors, and — and — oh, damn them ! ” 

“ How can I serve you ? ” said Holdsworth, coming quietly 
back to the point. 

“If I dare name my wants to you, sir — if I dare presume 
upon that benevolence which you have so signally illustrated 
in your behavior to little Nelly, I — I — ” 

‘ ‘ I am a poor man,” said Holdsworth, as the other paused, 
“ and can afford but little. But that little is cheerfully at the 
service of your wife and child, who must not be allowed to 
want. ” 

He spoke emphatically, to let the man understand the pur- 
pose to which he intended his gift or loan should be applied. 


A visn: 


259 


‘‘But for that wife and child, sir,” answered Mr. Conway, 
apparently struggling with his emotion, ‘ ‘ coxdd I place myself 
in this position? Is there any personal necessity, however 
imperative, that would force me to lose sight of the pride 
which renders starvation preferable to alms-seeking to the gen- 
tleman born? No, sir,” he continued, with an air of injured 
dignity ; “ poor as I am, I can still recognize the claims of my 
birth upon my actions ; and I repeat, that were it not for my 
wife and her little one, no affliction, however unsupportable, 
should oblige me to intrude even upon your benevolence.” 

He paused, and seeing Holdsworth look impatient, ex- 
claimed, hurriedly. 

If ten pounds — ” and stopped. 

“You wish to borrow ten pounds ?” 

“Ah, sir, if I dare — ” 

“ Of what service will so small a sum be to you? ” 

The man looked struck ; Holdsworth had expected to hear a 
larger sum named, he thought. 

“ Ten pounds to a iDoor man — to a poor family, sir — ten 
pounds is a great deal of money. ” 

“I will lend you ten pounds willingly, on condition that 
you spend it on your wife and Nelly.” 

“ Certainly, certainly,” replied Mr. Conway, meekly. “You 
may depend upon being repaid if I have to pawn the shirt off 
my back to get the money.” 

I suppose that this kind of security (generally offered by 
men who have not the least idea of repaying a loan) must be 
figurative — a poetical figure of debt. How far would the shirt 
off a man’s back help the redemption of the debts borrowed on 
the strength of it ? 

Holdsworth gave Mr. Conway two five-pound notes. The 
man took them eagerly, and while he buried them in his 
trousers’ pocket poured forth a profusion of thanks. 

“ Does Mrs. Conway know of this visit?” asked Holdsworth, 
stopping his noise. 

“No, sir; but, believe me, I shall not fail to acquaint her 
with your kindness,” he answered, taking his hat and rising. 

Holdsworth’s impulse was to request him not to speak to her 


260 


JOHN HOLDSWOUTH, CUIEF MATE, 


of this gift — for loan it would be ridiculous to call it. But he 
checked himself with the consideration that, were Mr. Conway 
to break his word, Dolly would find food for dangerous ques- 
tioning in the request. 

He said, instead, ‘ ‘ You will not forget the purpose for which 
I have lent you this money ? ” 

‘‘ Trust me, sir ; trust me,” murmured Mr. Conway, pressing 
his hat to his heart. “If you will give me ink and ]paper 
I will make you out an I O U at once.” 

“Never mind that. Nelly is a growing child, and requires 
nourishing food : devote the money to her and her mother, 
and you will make me grateful.” 

He walked into the passage, and Mr. Conway, bowing hum- 
bly, passed into the porch, where he stood a moment or two 
peeping at his house ; then, with another bow, hurried into the 
road, and vanished in the direction of the town. 

The poverty of the Conways, then, was unquestionable. 
Holdsworth had often speculated upon their position, but had 
never reached nearer to the mark than supposing that they 
lived from hand to mouth, and just made shift to support the 
day that was passing over them. That they were actually in 
want, actually destitute, indeed, it had never entered his mind 
to imagine. He believed Conway’s story. And it was very 
certain that, if the man had no private means of his own, he 
must be hopelessly poor, for he made nothing by his pro- 
fession. In all the six weeks that Holdsworth had been in 
Hanwitch he had not seen as many people call at Conway’s 
house, and of these, supposing them to be patients, half of 
them had come away after speaking with the servant, doubtless 
informed that master was out. 

But, even guessing so much, Holdsworth guessed only half 
the truth, and it was well, perhaps, that he did not know 
all, for grief must have mastered his judgment and forced him 
into the confession which he jDmyed, night and morning, for 
will to restrain. It was after dark always when Dolly, closely 
veiled, would creep down the road with some little bundle 
under her shawl for the pawnbroker, that she might obtain a 


A VISIT. 


261 


trifle in order to furnish her child with a meal on the morrow. 
It was in the privacy of her own home that she labored as 
no menial ever will labor ; sitting up late night after night 
over the endless task of darning and mending her own and her 
child’s shabby apparel ; often going supperless to bed, and 
waking to a day even more hopeless than the one that had pre- 
ceded it. 

The devoted man, who would have given his life to win her 
happiness, knew nothing of all this. Even his little child’s 
dress told him no story, though a woman might have read a 
full and pathetic narrative of toil and poverty in the frock, 
turned and re-turned, mended and patched, and darned again 
and again. 

Holdsworth seldom saw her now ; yet, if ever she caught 
sight of him at his window, she had always a kindly smile, a 
grateful nod ; and what with the shadow of her hat over her 
face, and the distance which softened the lines of care, grief, 
and weariness into the sweet and delicate effect of her beauty, 
he was ignorant of the serious and withering change that had 
taken place in her even during the short time that had elapsed 
since they had last met and spoken in the High Street. 

Nelly came over to him at one o’clock, and he kept her to 
dinner. The child was hungry, and as he watched her eating 
he thought of Dolly. 

“ Has mamma got a good dinner to-day, darling ? ” 

The little thing looked puzzled ; but, upon Holdsworth re- 
peating the question, answered, ‘‘Noo.” 

He thought she was mistaken, since, after what Conway had 
told him, the man’s first action, he believed, now that he had 
money in his pocket, would be to attend to his wife’s necessi- 
ties. But though he repeated his question in different shapes, 
the child invariably answered, ‘‘ Noo, mamma got no din-din.” 

‘‘No dinner at all ? Are you sure, my pet ? ” 

Yes, the child was sure, as sure as a child could be. 

Holdsworth sprang up and rang the bell, and entered the 
passage to await Mrs. Parrot. She came out of her kitchen, 
and Holdsworth exclaimed, mastering his agitation, 

“ I want to confer with you, Mrs. PaiTot. Nelly tells me 


262 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


that her mamma has no dinner to-day. Is this likely — is this 
possible, do you think ? 

“ Indeed, sir, since you ask me, I do then, and God forgi’ 
me for thinkin’ the worst,” answered Mrs. Parrot. 

But,” cried Holdsworth, “ I gave Mr. Conway ten pounds 
this morning, stipulating that he should spend it on his wife 
and child ! ” 

‘‘ He ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Parrot, almost savagely. ‘‘ The 
WTetch ! ten pounds ! he’ll spend it all i’ liquor ! Oh, sir, why 
didn’t you give it to the poor lady ? ” 

“Yes, I ought to have done so,” replied Holdsworth, clasp- 
ing his hands. “ But how could I — what excuse could I have 
found for sending it to her ? Oh, Mrs. Parrot, something must 
be done. I can’t bear to think of the poor lady actually din- 
nerless. What can we contrive ? Bemember, she is a lady — ■ 
we must be careful.” 

“ To think of your lending ten pounds to that villin ! ” cried 
3Irs. Parrot, whose mind w^as staggered by the munificence of 
the sum and the artfulness of the man in obtaining it. “I 
niver heerd of such a thing ! And was that his reason for call- 
in’ ? If I’d ha’ only known his object, I’d ha’ sent him pack- 
in’ with his blarney, wouldn’t I ? ” 

“ What do you advise ?” said Holdsworth, eagerly. 

“ Well, sir. I’m sure I don’t know wBat to say. She is a 
lady, and it wouldn’t do to send her butcher’s meat across, 
would it ? I’ll tell you what Ave could do, sir : I could kill 
one o’ my fowls, and leave it, with my compliments, j)retend- 
ing I had killed some yesterday, and wished her, as a neigh- 
bor, to taste my fattening.” 

‘ ‘ That will do ! But, instead of killing your fowls, take 
this half-sovereign and run at once to the poulterer’s and bny 
a couple of pullets. You can then take them across, and she 
will suppose they are your own rearing. Will you do this ? ” 

“ With the greatest of pleasure, sir ; and I’m sure you must 
have a very kind heart to take so much interest in poor folks.” 

And Mrs. Parrot ran off for her bonnet, and was presently 
hurrying down the road with a market-basket on her arm, and 
her untied bonnet-strings streaming over her shoulders. 


A VI8TT. 


263 


Holdswortli waited impatiently for her return, while Nelly, 
who had finished dinner, toddled about the room, gazing with 
round, earnest eyes into the recesses and the cupboards, and at 
the shepherds on the mantel-piece and the yellow roses on the 
mat. 

In ten minutes’ time Mrs. Parrot came back, with her face 
flushed with thei heat and exercise, and darted into the house 
as though she had swept half a jeweller’s shop into her basket 
and was flying for dear life. 

“There, sir, what do you think of these?” she exclaimed, 
dragging a pair of handsomely floured pullets out of the basket 
and holding them at arm’s-length as though they were a pair 
of earrings. “ Aren’t they beauties, sir ? ” 

“ How can I send them across ? Will you take them ? ” 

“ Oh yes. I can jest leave ’em at the door, wi’ Mrs. Parrot’s 
compliments. She’ll be sure to guess that they’re my rearin’, 
and save me from an untruth, though my religion is none so 
fine, thank God ! that I should be afeard to tell a kind o’ white 
lie to help any poor creature as wanted.” 

She then examined the pullets attentively, to make sure that 
there were no trade-marks upon them in the shape of tickets, 
adjusted her bonnet, wiped her face, and walked across the 
road. 

Holdsworth waited in the passage until she returned. She 
was absent a few minutes, and then came back smiling, with 
the lid of the basket raised to let Holdsworth see that it was 
empty. 

“Did you see Mrs. Con-way ? ” 

“No, sir; I wouldn’t ask for her,” replied Mrs. Parrot, wip- 
ing her feet on the door-mat. “I jest says to the gal, ‘ Give 
this here to your missis, with my compliments, and tell her 
that they’re ready for cookin’ at once, as they’ve been killed 
long enough.’ I niver see any gal look like that wench did 
when she took the pullets. I thought she’d ha’ fainted. She 
turned as pale as pale, and then she grinned, slow-like, and 
then laughed wi’ a sound for all the world like the squeak of 
a dog that’s smotherin’ under a cushion. Here’s your change, 
sir. Pullets, six shillin’, and one is seven, and two is nine, 


2G4 JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 

and two sixpences makes it right. Will you please to count 
it?” 

Holdsworth thanked her, and returned to the sitting-room 
with a relieved mind. But scarcely was he seated when Mrs. 
Parrot knocked on the door, and mysteriously beckoned him 
into the passage. 

“ I forgot to say, sir, that I ast the gal before coming aw’-ay 
if her master was in, and she said ‘No.’ I says, ‘ When will 
he be in ? ’ She says, ‘ I don’t know,* missis ; he went out this 
mornin’, an’ he’s not been back since.’ Mark what I say, sir ! ” 
added Mrs. PaiTot, raising an emphatic forefinger, ‘ ‘ he’ll not 
give a penny o’ that money to his poor wife, but jest keep 
away from her till he’s drunk it all out.” 

Accompanying which prophecy with many indignant nods, 
she walked defiantly towards the kitchen. 

The idea of Dolly’s miserable position, never before impress- 
ed upon him as it had been that day, made Holdsworth 
wretched. He seated himself at the window and stared 
gloomily and sadly into the road. Nelly came to him and tried 
to coax him to play with her, but he had no heart even to meet 
the little creature’s sweet, entreating eyes with a smile. He 
caught her up, pressed her to him, and kissed her again and 
again, while the hot tears rolled down his thin face. 

Never before was his impulse to tell Dolly who he was and 
snatch her from the misery, the unmeet sorrow that encom- 
passed her, so powerful. Love and pity strove with the dread 
of dishonoring her by the revelation. Could he endure to 
think that this delicate, gentle girl was linked to a man who 
neglected her, who might even ill-treat her, who at that 
moment might be squandering the moifey that had been given 
him on his owm gross appetites, without thought of the wife 
and child wanting bread at home ? What must be the issue of 
such a life if it were permitted to endure ? Sooner or later 
Holdsworth must avow himself, to save her and his child from 
that uttermost degree of ruin and misery to which Conway was 
dragging them. 

He had hoped to devote his life to them. His dream had 
been that Conway’s character was not irretrievably bad — that 


A VISIT. 


265 


kindly entreaty, cordial advice, and pecuniary help might 
bring him to a knowledge of his folly and set him once more 
on the high road to respectability. Such a redemiDtion would 
have been Holdsworth’s sacrifice ; but his own happiness was as 
nothing in his eyes compared to Dolly’s. Faithfully would he 
have performed his duty to her, nobly would he have vindi- 
cated his own most honorable, most exalted devotion, could 
he have reclaimed this erring man, and taught him to give his 
wife as much happiness as it was possible for a heart that 
ceaselessly mourned a dead love to know. Thus he could have 
been his Dolly’s good angel, and while God permitted him, 
have kept watch over her and her child, dead to her belief, but 
active as the holiest love could make life in his helpful secret 
guardianship. 

He perceived the vanity of that hope now, and yet despair- 
ingly clung to it, because, if he surrendered it, he felt that he 
must confess himself ; and from this he shrank as from a deed 
that would inflict a deeper degradation upon her, while Con- 
way lived, than any she could suffer from her husband’s 
behavior. 

One must either entirely sympathize with his profound sus- 
ceptibility of the obligation his supposed death had forced upon 
him to fulfil, or ridicule him as a man absurdly fantastical in 
his views of morality. There seems no middle standpoint to 
judge him from. 

But unless there be too much austerity in his virtue to make 
it admirable, then, to properly appreciate it, we must remem- 
ber the extraordinary tenderness of his nature, his exquisite 
sensibility, which shrank from the mere thought of tarnishing 
the pure honor of the woman he loved. 

That he believed her honor would be tarnished were he to 
proclaim himself in the lifetime of her present husband, was 
enough ; and whether he was right or wrong ; whether he was 
correct in holding the obligations of the marriage- service holy, 
binding, and to be disturbed only at the risk of God’s wrath, 
when incurred with a spotless conscience, when entered upon 
in innocence and good faith ; or whether he should have 
regarded the marriage-service as a mere civil convention which 


266 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


made his wife his property, claimable by him on the common 
ground of the law of priority, without reference to any action 
she might have committed in honest belief that he was dead ; 
one thing we must allow him — an unparalleled quality of 
unselfishness, the existence of which, while it attested the 
sincerity of his views (since he had his heart’s deepest affections 
to lose and nothing to gain by retaining them), elevated his 
conduct to the highest point of heroism. 

Nelly had never before found him unwilling to romp with 
her ; when he raised his head she watched his face with a 
strange, wistful look, and putting her finger to his cheek, said, 
• “ Why do ’oo cry ? ” 

He forced a smile for answer, caressed her, and then placed 
her on the ground, thinking she was weary of sitting. But 
she climbed upon his knee again, and repeated her question 
with great earnestness, 

‘‘ Why do ’oo cry ? ” 

“ Because I am silly and weak, my little one. I am forget- 
ting that there is a good and just God over me, who will hear 
my prayers and help me, as he before did when- 1 was alone 
on the wide sea.” 

He said this aloud, but spoke rather to himself than to the 
child. 

.“3)od loves Nelly,” said the little thing, “ and Nelly loves 
h i. ri£^©t!mkiss ’oo.” 

.jiiat was all the comfort she could give him ; but it fell 
-’tenderly on his ear. He kissed her gratefully, rocking her 
gently to and fro in his arms with his eyes on her face. She 
soon, however, rebelled against an attitude which crippled her 
limbs, and slipped on to the floor ; and to amuse her he gave 
her a book with pictures in it, which she examined gravely, 
talking to herself as little children and aged people do. 

In this manner the afternoon passed ; but never was Holds- 
worth more depressed, more restless, filled with more nameless 
anxieties and misgivings. 

Apart from all moral considerations, his future was terribly 
uncertain. 

Suppose the Conways left the town : he must follow them. 


THE KNOT IS CUT 


267 


for he could not bear the separation ; and what would they 
think of his pursuit ? Suppose all his efforts to obtain a liv- 
ing failed, what should he do ? 

At five o’clock Mrs. Parrot came in to put on Nelly’s hat : 
that was the regular hour at which the little girl was sent 
home by Holdsworth. 

“ My apron is dirty,” said the worthy woman, “ so I’ll not go 
across with you, my dear. But I’ll watch from the porch 
until I see you safe in.” 

So, receiving a kiss and a piece of gingerbread from Holds- 
worth, the child toddled into the road, and when she was in- 
side the gate, where her mother would see her, Mrs. Parrot 
closed the door and went back to her ironing in the kitchen. 


CHAPTEE XXX. 

THE KNOT IS CUT. 

A storm broke over Hanwitch that night and left behind it 
a strong wind which swept up gTeat masses of clouds, and the 
morning sunshine streamed and darkened in quick alterna- 
tions, and made the air lively with the moiTement of' shadow. 

Holdsworth, deeply disturbed by conflicting* u: 
slept but little, and at eight o’clock left his bed and sitl 
for a walk before breakfast, hoping that the breeze which'' 
thundered about the house w^ould freshen and inspirit him. 

Gaining the High Street, he turned to the left and walked 
along a narrow pathway that took him through the fields to 
Maldon Heights, as the hill that overlooked Hanwitch was 
called. He climbed the grassy slope and stood awhile on the 
summit, drinking in the hooting wind and watching the fluct- 
uating scene that ran from his feet to the horizon. The oats 
and barley in many fields were not yet cut ; and it was a sight 
to see them breaking into wide spaces of delicate gold under 
the sun, and growing gray again as the cloud-shadows sailed 
over them. When the sunshine lingered awhile, these fields 


268 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


seemed to reflect the shadows which had passed ; for the wind 
rushed like a dark arm along them, and pressed the graceful 
grain into the likeness of a wave, which swept forward with 
swiftness, making the fields dark where it ran. The farther 
trees appeared to hold steady under the breeze ; but there 
were nearer trees wdiich swayed their branches in wild gesticu- 
lations of entreaty, and flogged the wind as it roared among 
them, bearing away trophies of green leaves and broken twigs. 
The birds breasted the gale with short flights, or turned and 
yielded to the invisible power with small cries. Every object 
the eye rested on appeared in motion, so lively was the effect 
of the cloud-shadows upon the houses and the weight of the 
wind upon the surrounding country. 

It w^as a morning to clear the most hypochondriacal mind of 
desiDondency, and Holdsworth felt its cheerful influence as he 
stood exposed to the swinging rush of warm air, and watched 
nature dancing to the tunes sung by the wind as it swept 
through the sky. 

He had made up his mind to call at the brewery that morning, 
and he took a look at it, as he passed the street in which it 
stood, on his way home. The jail-like building, with the 
steam about its windows resembling rich London fog, wLich 
refused either to stop in or go away, was scarcely calculated to 
improve his hopes. Big beef -faced men in aprons rolled huge 
casks out of a court-yard into a cellar filled with sawdust, damp, 
and gloom ; the throb of the engine could be heard distinctly, 
and the wind that blew out of the street came in agitated, 
disordered puffs, as though the smell of the beer had made it 
rather drunk. 

Holdsworth shook his head as he passed on. It struck him 
that there would be little chance of his getting employment 
in that steaming, panting, perspiring quarter, and that he would 
be acting more wisely if, instead of challenging rudeness by 
personal inquiries at places where nobody wanted him, he 
silent a few shillings in advertising for a situation. 

Determining to do this, he made what haste he could back to 
his lodgings, meaning there and then to manufacture an ad- 
vertisement. 


THE KNOT IS GUT 


269 


He entered his sitting-room, rang the bell to let Mrs. Parrot 
know he had returned, and sat himself down to consider the 
terms in which he should make his wants known. 

‘ ‘ What would you like for breakfast, sir ? ” said Mrs. Parrot, 
opening the door. 

“ Oh, anything you please. Anew-laid egg, if you can find 
one.” 

“ Yes, sir. I took four beauties out just now. Have you 
heard the news, sir?” 

“ No. What news ? ” 

“ Well, sir, it’s what I alius thought must happen ; and day 
after day Pve been expectin’ it, as mother’ll bear me out. 
They’ve got the brokers in at the Conways.” 

“ The brokers ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth, turning round in 
his chair quickly. 

“Yes, sir. Their gal told the milkman just now, as giv* me 
the news. And what’s wuss — leastways some might call it 
wuss, though I should consider it a good job myself, if I was 
his wife — Mr. Conway hasn’t been home all night ! ” 

“ The villain ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth through his teeth. 
And then he jumped up and began to pace the room excitedly. 

“ Stop ! ” he cried, observing that Mrs. Parrot was about to 
withdraw. ‘ ‘ Are you sure this news is true ? ” 

Oh, I’ve no doubt of it, sir. When the milkman told me, 
I was jest goin’ to run across and see the poor lady, and then I 
says to myself, ‘ What use can I be to her ? ’ ” 

“I may be of some use, though,” interrupted Holdsworth. 
“ Never mind about my breakfast just yet. When did the man 
enter the house to take possession ? ” 

“Last nighb, sir, the gal rold the milkman.” 

“ Great Heaven ! And has she been alone all night? ” He 
stopped short, seized his hat, and brushing past Mrs. Parrot 
went quickly out of the house. 

Mrs. Parrot watched him from the porch, lost in amaze- 
ment. 

He pushed open the gate, marched up to the door, and 
knocked loudly. His mood was one of deep excitement. The 
sense of the crushing misery that had fallen upon Dolly had 


270 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


given a poignancy to feeling that set all self-control at defi- 
ance. 

The door was opened by the servant, and ont with her came 
a smell of strong tobacco-smoke. 

“ Is Mr. Conway in ? ” 

“No, sir, he ain’t, ” answered the girl, looking behind her, 
and then at Holds worth, with a scared face. 

“Where’s your mistress ? ” 

“In the parlor, sir.” 

“I should like to see her.” 

“ She’s not wisible. She’s in grief, and ain’t to be seen.” 

“ Go and tell her that Mr. Hampden has called, and would 
like to say a word to her. ” 

“ I don’t think ” 

“Do what I tell you ! ” exclaimed Holdsworth. 

The girl slouched backward and iDUshed her head into the 
parlor door. 

“ She ain’t here. She’s gone up-stairs,” said she; and up- 
stairs she went, slapping the stair-case with her shoes as she 
proceeded. 

An individual with a round, red face, a wliite hat, a spotted 
shawl, a coat nearly to his ankles, a long waistcoat, and a black 
clay pipe in his mouth, lounged elegantly out of the room 
which Mr. Conway had called his “Surgery,” at the end of the 
passage, and, leaning collectedly against the door, nodded 
familiarly to Holdsworth, took his pipe from his mouth, ex- 
pectorated, and said “Morning.” 

“Good-morning. Are you the man in possession ? ” replied 
Holdsworth. 

The individual nodded, and replaced his pipe. 

“ When did you come ? ” 

‘ ‘ Last night, ” answered the man, in a thick voice. ‘ ‘ And a 
werry queer lookout it is. Blowed if they’ve got any butter in 
this house ! ” 

‘ ‘ What is the amount of the debt ? ” 

“Twenty-three pun four-and-sevenpence,” said the man, re- 
moving his pipe to expectorate again. “ Are you a creditor ? ” 

“No,” answered Holdsworth, listening for Dolly’s footsteps. 


THE KNOT IS CUT 


271 


Then if you vent on your bended knees for gratitood you 
vouldn’t be overdoin’ it,” said the man, giving Holdsworth a 
sagacious nod. “ There ainT above ten pound in the house, 
and not that. Cast yer eye into that parler. The best of the 
goods is there, and if you can make three pound out of ’em 
I’ll swaller my pipe.” 

And then an idea smiting him, 

“You ain’t come to have a tooth drawed, have yer?” 

“No.” 

“Vot’syour opinion of tooth-drawin’ ? ” inquired the man 
confidentially, retiring and reappearing again, holding up a 
pair of forceps. “ Ain’t it rayther a queer go, don’t you 
think? I knew a barber as drawed teeth. He never used 
nothing of this, kind. Vot do you think he did? Bust me if 
he doesn’t set you in a chair, fastens a bit o’ vire to the tooth 
as is to come out, and ties t’other end of the vire to the leg of 
a table. Ven all’s ready, ‘Mind yer eye,’ he sings out, up’s 
with a razor, rushes at yer, makin’ horrible mouths ; up jumps 
you, avays you run, and leaves yer tooth behind yer.” 

He gargled an asthmatical laugh, adding, ‘ ‘ That’s vot I 
call a sensible vay of drawin’ a tooth ; no bits of cold iron 
shoved into yer mouth as if yer tongue vas hair and vanted 
curling. ” 

“Please, sir, will you step into the parlor and sit down?” 
said the girl, thrusting her head over the balusters and 
calling to HoldsTvorth. “ Missis’ll be with yer in a minute.” 

He entered the wretched little parlor, while the ‘ ‘ man in 
possession ” retreated to the surgery arm-chair, and sat severely 
contemplating some unfinished teeth on the table in front 
of him. 

In a few moments Holdsworth heard footsteps outside, and 
Dolly came in, holding Nelly’s hand. She was terribly iDale, 
with a look of terror and exhaustion on her face painful to see. 
There was an unnatural sleepless brilliancy in her eyes that 
heightened her worn, hopeless expression. She had thrown an 
old shawl over her shoulders, and through the portion of the 
fair skin of the neck that was exposed the veins showed dark. 
The hand she gave to Holdsworth was like a stone. 


272 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


He was so overcome by the sight of her misery that for some 
moments he could not siDeak. The child came up to him and 
rubbed her cheek against his hand. 

“This is kind, very kind of you, Mr. Hampden,” she ex- 
claimed, in a low, faint voice, sinking upon the sofa and shiv- 
ering as she hugged the shawl about her shoulders. 

“ You are in great distress, I fear. I only heard the news 
just now. I came over to you at once,” he answered, tremu- 
lously, the fierce beating of his heart sounding an echo through 
his voice. 

“It is what I have been daily expecting for many months— 
for many bitter, cruel months ! ” she exclaimed. “ It has come 
at last. We are homeless now. And my husband, who ought 
to be at my side, has left me. He was away all day yesterday 
and last night. O God ! what a night it has been ! ” she 
moaned, rocking herself to and fro. 

“ Don’t say you are homeless,” he cried ; “ you have a friend. 
Let me be youi' friend. Mrs. Parrot shall give you a home for 
the present — if you will accept it. ” 

She looked at him with stupefied eyes, as one who doubts 
her senses, then said, “ We have no claim upon you. Oh, how 
noble-hearted ! Nelly, Nelly, come to me, come to me ! ” 

The child ran to her mother, and, being frightened by the 
passionate despair in her voice, hid her face in her lap and 
burst into tears. But Dolly’s eyes remained dry, losing noth- 
ing of their wild brilliancy. She dragged her child to her, 
and swayed to and fro, with tearless sobs that shook and con- 
vulsed her. 

“I have deserved this,” she presently moaned. “I was 
faithless to the truest love God ever blessed a woman with. 
Why was he taken from me ? My child was starving, and the 
sight of her wasted body drove me mad with grief. I never 
loved Mr. Conway— he knew it. He has left me ! Oh, is 
a coward to leave me ! What am I to do ? I am a lonely 
woman — I have this child to feed and clothe — I have not a 
relative to turn to — and now we are homeless ! O God ! this 
is too much, too much ! ” 

She hid her face in her child’s hair. 


THE KNOT IS CUT. 


273 


Nothing but the dread that the truth at that moment might 
kill her to hear, prevented him, as he listened to her heart- 
broken words, from kneeling to her and calling her wife. He 
watched her with a strange steadfastness of gaze, and with a 
face more bloodless than hers. The impulse to avow himself 
had recoiled and driven the blood to his heart ; a faintness 
overcame him, but he battled with the deadly weakness, and, 
the better to do so, rose and strode across the room and stood 
near his wife and child, looking down upon them. 

‘‘ I will help you to the utmost of my power,” he said, speak- 
ing slowly, and with a difficulty that presently passed. “ "Wliile 
I live, neither you nor your child will be friendless. Trust 
me, and make me happy by knowing me to be your friend.” 

She raised her feverishly-lighted eyes and said, in a quick, 
febrile wdiisper, “You cannot take the burden of the three of 
us upon yourself.” 

“ No ! I would not raise a finger to seiwe your husband now. 
He has money, but he left you in want all day yesterday, and 
you have been alone through the night. But I will befriend 
you and your child. Whatever I can do shall be done. I am 
not rich : I would to God I were, for your sake. Were I to 
pay this debt I should only delay the loss of your furniture for 
a few days ; others would come, and I should not have the 
money to deal with them.” 

‘ ‘ What am I to do ? ” she wailed, clinging to her child. 

“Mrs. Parrot’s house will be your home for the present. We 
must wait until we get news of Mr. Conway.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Hamj^den, is he not cruel to have left me in this 
position ? No one knows but God what I have endured during 
the last year. When I was battling with poverty alone I was 
happier and richer. My memories were fresh and pure, my 
conscience was clear ; but I sacrificed them for Nelly’s sake, 
and now I am deserted, and the most miserable woman in the 
whole world ! ” 

She broke into a long, piteous cry, but no tears came into 
her eyes. 

“Let me tld^e you at once from this wretched home. 
Come ! ” 


18 


274 


JOHN H0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE. 


He went to the door and held it open. Dolly stared around 
her, like a sleeper suddenly aroused, and then arose, with the 
child in her arms. Holdsworth called to the servant and told 
her to fetch her mistress’s hat. The man in possession ” 
lounged out of the back room and stared with a dry smile. 

“ Goin ’ ? ” he asked. 

Holdsworth did not answer him. The weight of the child 
was too great for the half-fainting mother, who tottered as she 
stood. Holdsworth took: Nelly from her and placed her on the 
ground. 

“ You ain’t agoin’, missis, are yer ? ” said the servant, hand- 
ing Dolly the hat, and whimpering. 

“Yes,” replied Holdsworth ; “ and if Mr. Conway should call, 
tell him that his wife is at Mrs. Parrot’s.” 

“ Oh, mum, I don’t like to be left alone with that man ! ” 
cried the servant, looking down the passage. 

“Vy not?” said the man. “If you’re all goin’, who’s to 
cook my wittles, I should like to know ? ” 

“ i’ll not stop ! ” exclaimed the girl. “ I wouldn’t trust my- 
self anear him.” 

“You’re free to stop or go, as you please,” said Holds- 
worth, giving her some money. 

“Then I ain’t to be paid out, arter all? ” exclaimed the man, 
striking a match, and holding it flaming in one hand and his 
pijDe in the other. 

“Not by me,” answered Holdsworth, opening the hall-door. 

He took Nelly’s hand and gave Dolly his arm. She drew a 
long, quivering sob as she passed through the garden ; and 
then, seeing some inquisitive faces staring over the wire blinds 
in the opposite house, hung her head and stepped out quickly. 

Mrs. Parrot, hearing them come in, ran out of the kitchen, 
and stood looking from one to the other of them in mute aston- 
ishment. 

“ Mrs. Conway will make a temporary home of your house, 
Mrs. Parrot,” said Holdsworth. “ You will kindly prejDare a 
bedroom for her and Miss Nelly, and place your drawing- 
room at her disposal.” 

Dolly had sunk into a chair. He poured out some wine and 


THE KNOT IS GUT, 


275 


held it to her, but she waved it away, striving to suppress her 
sobs. 

“ Oh, ma’am, pray don’t take on so,” cried Mrs. Parrot, go- 
ing up to her. “ Things’ll come right, ma’am. You’ll be 
heasy an’ comfortable here.” 

Holdsworth knelt on a chair beside her, holding the wine. 
Oh, it was hard that he could not take her to his heart and 
whisper the word that would change all her anguish into joy. 
But if ever the barrier that was raised between them had been 
felt, it was felt by him then. Her honor now, more than ever 
it had been, becoming peculiarly his care. The sense of her 
being another’s — that his own claims were as naught in the 
presence of her belief that she was Conway’s wife — was never 
before so sharply felt. Her misery had given her in his eyes 
a sanctity that made his yearning love sacrilegious. Humility 
conquered emotion, and he crept away from her side, and stood 
looking at her from a distance, holding Nelly’s hand. 

Meanwhile Mrs. Parrot’s fingers were busy with Dolly’s hat- 
strings and the shawl over her shoulders, and she murmured 
incessantly all manner of kindly sentences, of which their ex- 
treme triteness as consolatory axioms was greatly qualified by 
her motherly manner. 

“There, my dear,” she exclaimed, laying the hat upon the 
table, ‘ ‘ drink a little wine ; you’ll be better presently. Life’s 
full o’ troubles, God knows ! and there are husbands in this 
world as is enough to make a woman forget her sect and strike 
’em. But a friend, ma’am, is as good as sunshine to a frost- 
bitten man, and I’m sure you’ve got a good and kind one in 
Mr. Hampden.” 

“ It’s my husband’s desertion,” cried Dolly, “that I think of. 
I don’t mind the loss of my home. But to think of his desert- 
ing me and my little one when he could not know that I had a 
friend — when I married him for Nelly’s sake, to get her bread. 
Yes, Mrs. Parrot, to save her from starving. And to feel that 
I defied my conscience only to be brought so low — so low ! ” 

‘ ‘ God forbid, my dear, that iver I should set husband an’ 
wife agin’ each other,” replied Mrs. PaiTot, glancing at Holds- 
worth, to see how he might relish her remark ; “but I must 


276 


JOHN HOLDS WORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


say that if Mr. Conway’s left yer it’s a good thing, an’ the last 
thing on this airth as would trouble me if I was you. You’ve 
gone through a deal o’ sufferin’ for him, an’ if he’s desairted 
you, you can’t come to worse harm nor was he to have stood 
by his home like a man, which he niver was ; and there’s not 
one o’ your neighbors as don’t know that you’ve had more 
trouble than any Christian woman i’ this world ought to have. 
And it may sound a hard sayin’, but if he’s gone,” she ex- 
claimed, looking defiantly at Holdsworfch, ‘‘ I hope and pray 
it’s for good an’ all.” 

It often happens in real life, as in books, that a closing 
remark will take a weird appropriateness by the sudden con- 
frontment of the fact of which it is only the shadow. Mrs. 
Parrot had barely shut her mouth when the passage echoed 
with the clattering of the knocker on the house-door. Never 
was such a delirious knocking. Mrs. Parrot turned pale, 
persuaded that Mr. Conway had come home drunk, and had 
reeled across to her house to demand his wife and create a 
horrible “scene.” 

Dolly raised her head, and it was plain that the same idea 
had occurred to her, by the indescribable expression of mingled 
hate, fear, and loathing that entered her face. 

Mrs. Parrot, giving her moral organization a twist, ran out. 
Scarcely had she opened the door when in burst Martha, the 
servant from over the Avay. 

“Oh, missis! oh, missis!” she screeched, “what do you 
think ? Master’s drowned ! O Lord ! Where’s Mrs. Conway ? 
He’s dead an’ gone ! Here’s the gent as brought the noos. 
Oh, sir, please tel] the missis here ! ” 

She turned, and in her excitement caught hold of the sleeve 
of a stout little man wlio stood behind, and literally dmgged 
him forward. 

“Let go, you fool! What are you a-doing of? Are you 
Mrs. Conway?” he asked of Mrs. Parrot, w'ho stood staring 
with wide open eyes, grasping her dress as if she were only 
waiting to take a deep breath before tearing herself in two. 

“ No, she ain’t ! This ain’t Mrs. Conway ! ” cried the ex- 
cited Martha. 


THE KNOT IS GUT 


277 


Yon told me she was here ! ” exclaimed the man. 

“ So she is ; ain’t she, missis? ” 

“ Great ’iven ! what a clatterin’ ! ” cried Mrs. Parrot, recov- 
ering her tongue. ‘‘What is it you’ve got to say, sir?” 

“Why, this,” answered the little man, who was evidently a 
very irritable little man — “ Mr. Conway’s body was found in 
the river this morning at a quarter before seven, and he’s lying- 
now in the Town Hall, and I’ve come to give the news ; and 
curse me if ever I’ll undertake such a job again, if I am to be 
mauled about by such a fool as this, when I’m out of breath 
and fit to drop with perspii-ation. ” 

“Mrs. Parrot ! Mrs. Parrot ! ” called Holdsworth. 

The half distracted woman ran into the sitting-room, where 
the first thing she saw was Dolly in a dead faint, lying upon 
the sofa, with Holdsworth kneeling by her side. 

“ She overheard your voices ! ” he exclaimed, turning up a 
face as white as death. ‘ ‘ Pray God the shock may not kill 
her. Look to her, Mrs. Parrot, I musil speak to the man 
outside.” 

He jumped up and left the room, and found the little, 
irritable man in the act of walking away. 

“I beg your pardon. One moment!” he cried, running 
out after him. “ Pray excuse my agitation. You have brought 
shocking news. Is it indeed true ? ” 

The little man turned, and took in Holdsworth from head to 
foot, and answered, “It is true, sir. I’ve seen the body my- 
self. It’s in the Town Hall. He’s been in the water all night, 
the doctor says.” 

“All night?” 

“He was found by a man named Williamson. They all 
knew who he was when they saw him. He must have been 
drunk when he fell into the water, for the path was wide 
enough for a horse and cart. Dr. Tanner asked me to step 
round with the news, as he heard I was coming this way. 
Good-morning. ” 

The little man nodded and -walked away. Had Dolly been a 
rich man’s wife, a sympathetic deputation, introduced by the 
church-wardens, might have made a procession to her house to 


278 


JOHN JI0LD8W0RTH, CHIEF MATE, 


break the news gently ; bnt how can you expect sympathy for 
the wife of a man who dies owing everybody money ? 

Holdsworth was stunned, and stood for some moments 
staring idly from the porch. He then returned hastily to Dol- 
ly’s side. 

She’s cornin’ to, sir,’’ said Mrs. Parrot, slapping the poor 
girl’s hand, and expending what breath she had upon the cold, 
w^hite forehead. What awful noos, sir ! Conway dead ! I 
can’t believe it. And drowned, too ! Oh, poor wretch?” 

‘‘Hush! ” exclaimed Holdsworth. 

Dolly had opened her eyes, and was staring blindly at him. 
He moistened his handkerchief with water on the sideboard 
and pressed it to her head. Nelly stood at the window, gazing 
at her mother with a look of wistful fear in her face. At the 
door was Martha’s countenance, seamed with lines of perspira- 
tion, her mouth open, and her hair hanging like a string of 
young carrots over her forehead. 

“ I feel very weak,” muttered Dolly, striving to sit upright, 
but falling back. “ Something terrible has hajppened. Ah ! 
Bobert is dead ! ” 

The memory rushed upon her like a siDasm, and she spoke 
in a cry. 

‘ ‘ Come, my dear, don’t try to speak yet, ” said Mrs. Parrot. 

“ Where is Nelly ? ” 

Holdsworth led the child to the sofa. The mother looked at 
her little girl, opened her arms, and burst into tears. 

“ Thank God for that ! ” said Holdsworth, turning away. 
Watching her face as her consciousness had dawned, he had 
felt that, if tears did not relieve her her heart would break. 


CHAPTEB XXXI. 

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 

The little, irritable man had brought true news. The report 
was all over the town : everybody was talking of Conway’s death. 
A woman living in the road called upon Mrs. Parrot to give 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


279 


her the story, not knowing that Mrs. Conway was within. 
Her husband had met Williamson — the man who found Con- 
way — and had got the account from him, clear of all exaggera- 
tion. 

It was just this : Williamson was a Carpenter, and was walk- 
ing to Thorrold Marsh to execute a repairing job at a house 
there. He was this side of Hanwitch, just by the bridge facing 
Squire Markwell’s place, when he saw a human hand sticking 
out of the water. He qjeered, and saw a man lying on his back, 
the water half a foot above his face, showing the drowned fig- 
ure as plainly as if it were under glass. Williamson pulls off 
his coat, tucks up his shirt-sleeves, catches hold of the hand, 
and up comes the body like a cork. The moment he had the 
body ashore he knew who it was ; left his bag of tools on 
the bank, and ran as hard as his legs would carry him into 
the toTO to give the alarm. The inspector and two constables, 
and a couple of men with a stretcher belonging to the To^vn 
Hall, start out of the High Street and are conducted by Wil- 
liamson to the body. A crowd gathers about the tail of the 
procession, the body is put on the stretcher, covered up, and 
canied to the Town Hall in the sight of a multitude largo 
enough to diffuse the news through the length and breadth of 
Hanwitch in ten minutes. 

So, dead Mr. Conway was, if ever a man was dead in this 
world ; and now, the woman told Mrs. Parrot, people were 
only waiting for the coroner’s inquest, to learn how he came by 
his death. 

But the verdict, however it might run, w'ould be incon- 
clusive, since there were no witnesses to show how Conway 
fell into the water. But this much was known : that yester- 
day Conw^ay had called at the Three Stars and ordered a fine 
dinner to be got ready for him, with champagne and the best 
of wines ; and to let the landlord understand that he meant 
what he said, he pulled out a handful of sovereigns and let 
them fall into his pocket again, chink ! chink ! When dinner 
was done, he left the house intoxicated, and what became of 
him the Three Stars didn’t know ; but the Pine Apple did, for 
he came there in the afternoon and squeezed himself behind 


280 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


the bar, made love to the bar-maid, drank some tumblers of 
rum, and got into an abusive argument with a hostler, whose 
eye he threatened to blacken if he contradicted him again. 
On which he was turned out. 

That was his day’s history, so far as it was recorded in 
human knowledge. The rest could be guessed, and the 
public were not slow in explaining their theories. Of course 
he was drunk, had rolled into the water, and was too senseless 
to get out again, though the water where he lay was not above 
two and a half feet deep. 

Nobody cared twopence about his death. It gave the shop- 
people something to talk about until customers dropped in, 
and then it was, “ What’s the next article? ” and Conway w'as 
forgotten. When a bubble explodes upon the surface of a 
stream nothing mourns. The tide rolls on just the same, with 
sunshine or darkness in its breast, as the case may be ; the 
pikes lose no jot of their voracity, and gudgeons swim into 
their maw’s ; the minnows jump at the flies. Shall law, com- 
merce, or anything else stop because a drunkard is drowned ? 
Cover him ujd ; let him hide his face until the pale jury come 
to take a peep ; then pop him out of sight in a hole, and get 
back as fast as we may to dinner. 

But there were two persons on whose destiny this man’s 
death was to exercise an influence as w^onderful and gracious 
and beneficial as though, instead of a dead drunkard, he was a 
good spirit — an angel charged with a mission of love, sent by 
God himself to work out and complete the happiness of the 
man who had been heavily tried, but who, in his bitterest trial, 
had never been found wanting. 

And I truly think that for such men — men who in their sor- 
row reverentially bow their heads and say, ‘ ‘ God knows ; I 
believe in Him ; He shall lead me as a little child ” — who mur- 
mur not, but, praising their Heavenly Father alw^ays, make 
their actions a profound heroism by obeying His voice in all 
seasons, not more faithfully in moments of joy than in moments 
of anguish— for such men we shall seldom err in prophesying 
a time in their lives when the heat of the day shall be shaded 
from them and their burden and their conflict removed. O 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


281 


man, gi-eatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end ; for thou 
shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of thy days.” 

Dolly had asked to be left alone with her child. Deeming 
Holdsworth a stranger, she had felt the restraint of his presence 
upon her, deeply as she was moved by his goodness. Her heart 
ached ; misery had mastered her. The mere sense of ha\dng 
found a friend in this her time of piteous need could not suffice 
her. More was imperative ; communion with God ; communion 
with the husband who, she believed, looked dowm upon her 
from Heaven. To no mortal eyes could she lay bare the ex- 
quisite grief that lacerated her heart ; and though she should 
find no comfort even in the Heaven she turned to, yet her full 
and poignant misery demanded escape in words and tears, and 
she asked to be left alone. 

Holdsworth entered the room facing his own apartment. 
This was Mrs. Parrot’s drawing-room. Here she had a piano ; 
here she had some wonderful stuffed birds under glass shades ; 
here she herself sat on Sundays with her mother, when her 
house was unoccupied. 

He struggled to calm himself, that he might master and ap- 
preciate all the significance of the position in which he was 
IDlaced by the sudden death of Conway. But his moods were 
wild and hurrying ; the play of emotion was quick and painful. 
He saw his wife in her grief ; he saw her wrestling, with no 
eye but her child’s upon her, with the anguish that filled her ; 
he felt her loneliness ; he felt the cruel hopelessness that 
weighed in her heart as lead ; he felt, above all, the dreadful 
sense of degradation which must attend her reflections upon 
the death of her husband, Conway, upon the wretched, miser- 
able life she had led wi:h him ; upon the complete and bitter 
l^eversal of the sole end for which she had married him. 

The barrier that divided them was gone. Could there be 
any scruple now to hold him back from her ? If there yet lin- 
gered one feeling of delicacy to prompt him to delay his con- 
fession for a little, until the dead was buried, until something 
of the horror of the sudden death had yielded to time, should 
it not be removed by the knowledge of her misery, which he 
had it in his power to dissipate and turn to gladness ? Why 


282 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


should she weep ? Why should she feel one instant of pain, 
when he could change her tears to smiles, her grief to joy ? 

He stole to the door of the room she was in, and listened. 
He heard her sobbing, and that sound vanished his last hesita- 
tion. 

He turned the handle gently and entered. She was on her 
knees beside the sofa, her arms twined about Nelly, her face 
buried in the child’s lap. She started, looked at him, and 
rose slowly to her feet. He approached and stood before her. 

“Will you not trust me as a friend?” he said, in a voice 
little above a whisper. 

She tried to answer him, but her sobs choked her voice. 
He seated himself, and took Nelly on his knee, and, while he 
smoothed the child’s hair, continued : “ There is hope, there 
is comfort for you and this little one. Check your sobs, and 
listen to me. I can give you comfort, for I have known what it is 
to lose one that is dearer to me than my heart’s blood — to lose 
her and to find her again. She was my wife, and I left her to 
go to sea. The ship I sailed in was wrecked, and for many 
days I lay consumed with hunger and thirst in an open boat, 
seeing miserable creatures like myself dying around me one by 
one. And when I was rescued my memory was gone ; I could 
not remember my own name, my home, the wife I had left, the 
country I had sailed from. But the voice of God one day 
directed me to leave Australia and go to England. I reached 
London, and there a man spoke to me of Hanwitch, a name 
familiar and dear to me for my wife’s sake. And wLen I came 
to Southbourne the beloved old village gave me back my 
memory. I knew whom I had come to seek, and what I had 
lost. They told me that my wife thought me dead, and was 
married and lived with my child here — in this road — in that 
house yonder ! O Dolly ! O wife ! ” 

Her sweet, sad face, as he continued speaking, had been 
slowly upturning to his, and when their eyes met he put the 
little child upon the floor and stretched out his arms, crying, 
“O Dolly ! O wife!” 

But she I 

There was a look of petrifaction, stranger and more awful even 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


283 


than death, upon her face ; her eyes glared, her lips were 
parted ; and to have seen her thus stirless, thus white, thus 
staring, thus breathless, you would have said that she was 
dead, even as she sat there. 

Then the life leaped into her, she started from the sofa with 
a loud, hysterical laugh, and flung herself on her knees before 
him, crying, ‘‘John! John!” 

“Dolly!” 

“ John ! John ! ” she repeated ; and she brought his hand to 
her eyes, and stared at it ; and then grasped his knees and 
raised her face to his, talking to herself in hurried, inaudible 
whispers, and fixing a piercing gaze upon him. 

“John! John ! ” she cried out again. 

He put his arms around her, and would have pressed her to 
his heart, but she kept herself away with her hand against his 
breast, preserving that keen, unwinking, steadfast, wonderful 
gaze. 

“Do you not know me, Dolly?” he cried. “Look at me 
closely ; hear my voice ; hear me tell you of the old, dear 
times ! We were to meet in the summer, do you remember, 
Dolly ? and we were never more to part ; and you were to keep 
a calendar and mark off the days. O God ! what weary days — - 
what endless days to both of us ! And do you remember the 
walks we took the day before we parted, down by the river, 
where I sat and cried in your arms because the sight of your 
sorrow broke me down, and I had no more comfort to give 
you?” 

But still she would not let him clasp her. Still she kept 
her hand pressed against him, and her eyes, now growing wild 
and unreal with fear, upon his face. 

“O God!” he cried, in his agony. “Will she not know 
me ? Has my secret come upon her too suddenly ? Darling ! 
darling ! I could not see your tears, I could not hear your sobs, 
I could not feel the desolation and misery that was breaking 
your heart, and still keep myself hidden from you. Oh, bitter 
has the trial been to watch you — to know you to be mine — to 
see my little child — and to be as a stranger to you ! Call me 
John ! Call me husband ! >Speak to me, Dolly ! Tell me 


284 


JOHN no LBS WORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


tliat no change that pain and suffering have made in me can 
disguise me from your love ! ” 

She released herself from his arms and sprang a yard away 
from him; and there, as she stood transfixed, watching him 
with large, steady eyes, her dishevelled hair about her fore- 
head, her hands clinched, and her head inclined forward, she 
looked like a marble figure of Madness, her habiliments carven 
to the life. 

She had thought him dead. For many, many months she 
had prayed to him as one in heaven. Did she know him now ? 
Yes, but as a dead man might be known — with unspeakable 
fear and unspeakable love ; with the hoiTor of superstition and 
the passion of deep affection. 

Thus they stood for a while, their eyes fixed on each other ; 
then a heavy sigh broke from him ; he turned to his child. 

“ Nelly, my little one, come to me ! I am thy father ! ” 

He extended his arms. The action and words broke the 
spell. With an indescribable cry Dolly fled to him. 

“John! John!” she murmured. “My husband — my very 
own — come back to me from the dead ! Come back to me, 
after all this cruel waiting ! ” 

And then she broke from him again, and watched him yet 
again from a distance, then ran and flung her arms around his 
neck, crying, “John! John! Why did you not come to me 
before ? why did you not come to me before ? ” 

The hot tears w'ere streaming down his cheeks now ; he held 
her tightly, saying in broken tones, 

“ We are together — never more to part. I am thy very hus- 
band ! I have loved thee always! Oh, God be iDraised, the 
merciful God be praised for this ! ” 

“Nelly! Nelly!” she cried, and she ran from him and 
seized her child, and held her up. 

‘•She is ours, John ! our little one ! We have found papa, 
Nelly ! There he is ! There is Nelly’s papa ! God has given 
him back to us ! We were broken-hearted just now — O 
husband — husband ! ” 

She broke down ; a dangerous excitement had up to this 
moment sustained her. She sank into a weeping, sobbing. 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


285 


fainting woman in a moment ; but liis arms received her, his 
breast pillowed her, and there she rested for many minutes, 
with no sound to break the holy silence that filled the roon; 
but his deep, ^ivering sobs. 


When we peep at them again a half-hour has passed, and 
the wife is seated near the husband, with her arm around him, 
and the child is on her father’s knee. The fear that threw a 
film upon the exquisite emotions of the girl has passed ; she 
is listening to his story, interrupting him often with quick ex^ 
clamations of distress, then fondling him and listening again, 
vibrating with eagerness, with love, with amazement, which 
makes her pale face kaleidoscopic with expression. He is 
telling her of his sufferings in the boat, of his rescue, of his 
friends in Australia, of his return to England, of his arrival at 
Southbourne ; and as she hears him tell the story of his noble 
unselfishness — how, to save her from the sorrow and the shame 
that must have attended his disclosure, if made while Conway 
lived, he held his secret, but could not keep his love from 
going forth to his child — she knows that he has brought back 
to her the same grand heart he took with him five years ago ; 
the same magnanimous qualities ; the same pure impulses ; 
the same heroical capacity of self-sacrifice. 

And then she tells him her story ; and now it is for him to 
soothe her with the love that has transformed his face, and made 
it beautiful with a deeper and subtler beauty than it had ever 
before worn. For, as she recurs to those piteous times of her 
distress, her tears gush forth afresh and her eyes grow wild, 
as though she did not believe in the hapxoiness that had come 
to her at last. 

I see them sitting in that room while tlie bright morning 
sunshine pours upon the window and floods the floor with its 
radiance ; I hear the birds singing merrily in the garden, and 
the cosy clucking of the hens, and the sound of the fresh, 
sweet wind as it sweeps through the pear-trees and sends the 
red-edged leaves rustling to the ground. 

I see the child’s large, deep eyes wandering from father to 


286 


JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE, 


mother, from mother to father, with the small face busy with 
the unformed consciousness that struggles in it. 

I see the mother careworn and pale, but with the light of 
rapture on her face that discloses all its secret sweetness, 
watching, ever watching, with soft eyes shining with happy 
tears, the dear one whose arm is around her. 

I see Holdsworth with the patches of gray upon his hair, 
his sunken cheeks and bowed figure symbolizing while his 
life shall hold the unspeakable sufferings of mind and body he 
has known since we first beheld him. I see him, with the 
calmness of perfect joy mellowing his eyes, and enriching his 
face with a color that owes its lustre to the spirit, so that it 
shall be there in darkness and in sunshine, holding his wdfe to 
his heart, often pressing his lips to his child, often glancing 
upward with looks of ineffable gratitude, and I think of those 
lines which Goldsmith says are worth a million : 

“7 have been young,, and now am old; yet never saw I the 
righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging their breadk 
******** 

A knock falls upon the door ; the door is opened, and enter 
Mrs. Parrot. Does she start dramatically? I promise you 
there is more genuine astonishment conveyed by the little 
jump she gives, as she falls back a step and then stands star- 
ing, than in any movement designed to express wonderment 
you will see performed on the stage. 

So the mystery is solved, is it ? So her lodger isn’t a gentle- 
man after all, but an insidious man who, under pretence of 
liking Nelly’s company, has been i3aying attention to mamma ! 
and now, with Conway’s body lying in the Town Hall, dead only 
a few hours, is actually caressing the widow in Mrs. Parrot’s 
respectable house ! 

Holdsworth and Dolly exchange glances, and Dolly hangs 
her head, with a look of confusion on her face (and well she 
may, thinks Mrs. Parrot), as Holdsworth puts Nelly down and 
rises. 

‘‘I am reMly sorry to introod,” says Mrs. Parrot, haught- 
ily, ‘ ‘ but my motive for knockin’, sir, was to inquire when 
you would like your breakfast sarved ? ” 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


287 


^ ‘ We’ll talk of that in a moment,” answers Holdsworth. “I 
have something to say to you. This lady is my wife ! ” 

‘‘ I beg your parding,” says Mrs. Parrot, growing very pale. 

‘‘My wife, Mrs. Parrot. You have heard of Mr. Holds- 
worth who went to sea and was drowned? He was not drowned. 
I am Mr. Holdsworth ! ” 

“You! ” 

She tottered, ran forward, grasped the table, and shrieked, 
“You !” 

“Yes, Mrs. Parrot,” exclaimed Dolly, “this is John — my 
own darling husband, wdio I thought was dead.” 

“And do you mean to say, sir,” gasped Mrs. Parrot, hysteri- 
cally, “that you knew who you was yourself all the time ? ” 

“ All the time that I have lodged with you.” 

“An’ you’ve seen your lawful wife day arter day without 
si'>eakin’ of it, or sayin’ who you was ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Because,” stammered Mrs. Parrot, still clinging to the 
table, “because you says that a wife can’t have two husbands, 
and so you hid yourself that you might spare her feelin’s ? ” 

“ Y'es, that is why, Mrs. Parrot,” cried Dolly. 

Mrs. Parrot took a deep breath, and then, to the amazement 
of the others, burst into tears. 

“ Oh, sir, I can’t help it,” she sobbed. “ I niver did hear in 
all my life of such beautiful conduct — niver ! And is this your 
child ? Why, of course it is ! Oh, dear 1 who’d ha’ thought 
that any mortal man could ha’ acted so nobly. Oh sir, let me 
shake your hand.” 

She not only shook his hand, but actually fell against him 
and kissed him ; and then, overwhelmed with her effrontery 
and her feelings, was rushing out of the room, when Holdsworth 
stopped her. 

“ One moment, dear Mrs. Parrot. You are the only person 
in Hanwitch — in the world, I may say — who knows our secret. 
Will you keep it ? We have many reasons for not wishing it 
known.” 

“I will, sir, I promise you,” blubbered the honest woman, 
“since you ask me ; but if it wasn’t for that I’d go and spread 


288 


JOHN HOLD SW ORTH, CHIEF MATE. 


tlie noos everywhere, I would, for I niver heerd of such beauti- 
ful conduct before — niver, in sarmons or anywheers else ; and 
it ’ud be the makin’ of many a man to be told of it. God bless 
you both, I’m sure I God bless you, little gal ! You’ve found 
a good father — a rare good father ! ” 

And out she ran, choking. 

So the curtain falls, for the end has come. No need to raise 
it again, for you Avho have sat so kindly and i3atiently through 
this little drama must know as well as I what v/ill become of 
the two chief characters and their little one when they have 
made their bov/ and withdrawn. Australia is before them, 
with generous friends to welcome them to their new home, and 
listen with interest and tenderness to their strange story of 
bitter separation and sweet and sacred reunion. 

Enough has been written ; the quill that has driven these 
creations to this point is but a stump, the hand that holds it is 
tired ; the companionship of the shadows Avhich have kej)t 
me company is broken. What fitter time, then, than now to 
say good-by ? 


POSTSCEIPT. 

I must claim the reader’s indulgence while I speak for a 
moment of that portion of the foregoing narrative which re- 
fers to the hero’s loss of memory. 

That loss of memory has been brought about by trials and 
sufferings such as I have attempted to depict in the early chap- 
ters of this narrative, is too certain to make it necessary that 
I should adduce instances (which are very readily procured) as 
proof. That such loss has lasted, not for months only, but for 
years, will be seen by the following anecdote, which suggested 
this story, and which I extract from the Noon Gazette of July, 
1772 : 

‘‘Last Sunday died at Winchelsea a character of whom a 
correspondent, a gentleman distinguished both by his parts 
and benevolence, has obligingly furnished us with the follow- 
ing account : That his name w’as William Stephens, and tkat 


HUSBAND AND WIFE, 


289 


lie was a mariner, who, many years since, was pressed from his 
home to serve on board His Majesty’s ship-of-war The Vapor ; 
that he was then married but two weeks ; that while cruising 
off the Portugal coast The Vapor was wrecked, and Stejihens, 
with some others, saved his life by clinging to a portion of the 
wreck, in which condition they languished near three days, 
and were then rescued by a French merchantman, who carried 
them into Bordeau {sic) ; that on Stephens being questioned 
he was found to have lost his memory, on which he was sent 
into England, and was hired as porter by Mr. Hudson, of the 
York Inn, in or near to Folkestone, in Kent, where he re- 
mained for two years in entire ignorance of his past, until, his 
memory returning, he set off for Winchelsea on foot, and ar- 
rived to find his wife married to one Eel, a cobbler, whose life 
Stejihens threatened if he did not restore him his Nancy. 
This the cobbler did, and so the matter ended. It occasioned 
much gossip, and to the end of his days Mr. Stephens (who 
settled down as a carpenter, having lost all relish for the sea) 
wus regarded with curiosity, and had access to the houses of the 
neighboring gentry, whom his singular story never failed to 
divert.” 

There are on record many instances of loss of memory, oc- 
casioned by various means. In some cases the deprivation has 
been complete, and the restoration sudden, and resembling an 
abrupt revelation. In other instances it has been accompanied 
by faint, glimmering, haunting reminiscences, creatirrg inde- 
scribable arrxiety, but growing up suddenly into a sound and 
Xrermanerrt recovery. 


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RECENTLY RXJBLISHED. 

False Hopes; 

OR, 

FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND SEUl-SDCIALISTIC^ 
• BEIEFLY ANSWERED. 


An Address, by Prof. GOLDWOT SMITH, D.O.L, 


No. 110, Lovell’s Library ,..15 cents 

“ This is the title of a pamphlet in which Mr. Goidv/in Smith dissects and 
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to excite the spirit of change in every sphere, little as Utopianism is akin to 
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old pagan. John Scarborough, and his attorney, Grey, whom we agree with his 
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‘‘ Benjulia” is a singularly interesting, and, in a way, fascinating creation. 
Mr. Collins can deal strongly with a strong situation, but he has done nothing 
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dialogues are both brilliant and stirring, and the descriptive passages artVmas- 
terpieces. Ouida is seen at her brightest and best in ‘Wanda’ . the book tii rills 
by its dramatic interest, and delights by its singular freshness and unconven- 
tional style. There are no more attractive characters in English fiction than 
Wanda and her peasant husband, and increased fame r ust result tO the bril- 
liant novelist from this her latest work.”— Stephen ' s Review . 

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LOVELL’S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE, 


185. Mysterious Island, Pt II. 15 
Mysterious Island,PtIII.i5 

186. Ton:. Brown at 0x1 ord, 


2 Parts, each 15 

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188. In Silk Attire 20 

189. Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 
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191. The Nautz Family 20 

192. Great Expectations 20 

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Hist.of Pendennis,Pt II 20 

194. Widow Bedott Papers ..20 

195. Daniel Deronda,Part I.. 20 
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198. Tales of a Traveller 20 


199. Life and Voyages of Co- 

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The Caxtons, Part II ... j 5 

251. Autobiography of An- 

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254. Peter the Whaler 20 

255. Last of the Barons. Pt 1 . 15 
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256. Eastern Sketches 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair.... 20 

258. File No. 113 20 

259. The Parisians, Part I.. .20 
The Parisians, Part 1 1 .. 20 

260. Mrs. Darling’s Letters. . .20 

261. Master Humphrey’s 

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268. When the Ship Comes 

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272. Conquest of Granada. ..20 

273. Sketches by Boz 20 

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276. Harold, 2 Parts, each... 15 

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278. Maid of Athens. 20 

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285. A Legend of the Rhine, 

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302. 

303. 

304. 

305. 

306. 

307- 

308. 

309- 


310 


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A Real Queen 20 

The Rose and the Ring.20 
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Mark Seaworth 20 

Life of Paul Jones 20 

Round the World 20 

Elbow Room 20 

The Wizard’s Son 25 

Harry Lorrequer 20 

How It All Came Round.20 
Dante Rosetti’s Poems. 20 
The Canon’s Ward.. ...20 
Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 
Every Day Cook Book . . 20 
Lays of Ancient Rome . . 20 

Life of Bums 20 

The Young Foresters. ..20 

336. John Bull andHis Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

The Midshipman 20 

Proctor's Poems 20 

Clayton’s Rangers 20 

Schiller’s Poems .20 

Goethe’s Faust 20 

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Life of Thackeray 10 

Dante’s Vision of Hell, 
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An Interesting Case.... 20 
Life of Byron, Nichol. ..10 

Life of Bunyan 10 

Valerie’s Fate .....10 

Grandfather Lickshingle.20 
Lays of the Scottish Ca- 
valiers 20 

Willis’ Poems 20 

Tales of the French Re- 
volution 15 

Loom and Lugger . . . . . . 20 

More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands. . 15 

Hygiene of the Brain. ..25 

Berkeley the Banker 20 

Homes Abroad 15 

Scott’s Lady of the Lake, 

with notes.. 20 

Modern Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism, ... 15 


312. 

313* 

314. 

315- 

316. 

317. 

318. 

319. 

320. 

321. 

322. 

323. 

324. 

325. 

326. 

327. 

328. 

329. 

330. 

331. 

332. 

333. 

334. 

335 


338. 

339. 

340. 

341. 

342. 

343. 

344. 
345 - 

346. 

347. 

348. 

349. 

350- 

35 ‘* 

352. 

353- 

354. 

355- 

356. 

357. 

358. 

359- 

360, 



(OVWog 


CTeanlTness Ts tiexr to CoJliness* 

m ust ty ^onsiclerec! .a3 

oFliuraccT and a 

^Hergyman who recom mends 
moral, things should be willing 
to recommend I aiU 
toldtl^ mv commendation of 
t ^car^ ^^oa^l ins o p ened for It 
a large sale in th ^gtuitcd J-fatgS^ 
Pam, W'illing^ to stand Oy every word m 
favor of it that I ever uttered A man 
^ must be (astidious indeed wlio is.naii 
ealisfied vdth it. 


A Specialty Icr tte SMa & Coipleiioi. 

^ J recommended by the greatest English authority on the Skin, 


Prof. SIS EEASIUS WILSON, F.R.S. 

Pres, of the Royal CoL of Surgeons, England. 


Nothing adds so much to personal appearance as a iBi'igllt;, Olear 
Ooinplexion and. £t ©Iszin. With these the plainest 

features become attractive. Without them the handsomest are but coldly i mpressi ve. 

Many a complexion is marred by impure alkaline and Colored Toilet ^ap. 

BEARS’ SOAP 

Is specially prepared for the delicate skin of ladies and children and Other sensitive 
to the weather, winter or summer. In England it is pre-eminently the complexion 
Soap, and is recommended by all the best authorities, as on account of its emollient, 
non-irritant character, IrS-e^illLess, HoxiglllieSS aildL Oliap- 

X>iixg: sxre i>re^"eiite<i, and a clear and Txri^’lit 
appeai’aneo and a soft, condition im- 

parted and maintained, and a good, liealtlil’iil 
and attractive complexion ensured# 

Its agreeable and lasting perfume, beautiful appearance, and soothing prop- 
erties commend it as the greatest luxury of the toilet. Its durability and consequent 
economy is remarkable. 









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